A Strange Poetry
by Juniorstarcatcher
Summary: When her parents are executed by Romulus Thread, only one person stands up to save Madge Undersee from the fate The Capitol has condemned her to.
1. Chapter 1

The Hob, both the old and the newly restored after it was burned down by the Peacekeepers, is notorious for trading gossip and the hive of secrets has been buzzing for days now. First, it was the imprisonment of their beloved mayor and his sickly wife. The day after, it was the calling of the charges and the trial. On Wednesday, it was watching the Mayor's thin, shaking waif of a wife get dragged into the square for a whipping. Her death the next day. Finally, it was the hanging. In a matter of days, the gossip turned from accusations to executions. Now, two weeks later, the gossip turns to the criminals' daughter.

"Have you heard about the Undersee girl?"

He's slapping down a few rabbit skins on a table when he overhears that tidbit of conversation. As Sae begins to appraise the furs, Gale cannot help but listen in to the two bodies behind him. He knows it shouldn't concern him and he knows he shouldn't care what happens to Undersee. He cannot get involved with a traitor's daughter; the red target on his back is big enough as it is without pulling her into the mix. But, all the same… He cannot tune their gossip out. For weeks now, the only thing on his mind has been that damn morphling. At the thought, he can almost imagine the scars on his back twitching in pain. She saved his life with those damn bottles, a secret blurted out unceremoniously by his brother when he finally regained consciousness. Madge Undersee trekked miles in the middle of a snowstorm to bring him medicine she had no business having in the first place, to help someone who had crossed the government one too many times. She's a character he can't turn the page on.

"What happened?" The second voice behind him asks, nearly as interested as Gale is in this whole thing.

The first voice seems to shrug, giving little by way of actual sympathy. The words come out of his mouth as a barbing footnote, something that happens every day, but somehow is remarkable enough to stir up conversation.

"Getting shipped off to the children's home. Parent's are dead, so there's not much else can be done with her."

Gale feels sick. Suddenly, he feels physically ill and can't seem to find the floor below him. The world is spinning as those words do dizzying footraces around the tracks in his mind. Madge's parents are dead and they're sending her to the children's home. Gale experienced The Home for a series of nights once before, just after his father died and his mother was immovable with grief, an experience which landed him matching black eyes and a busted lip. The voice behind catches onto one odd turn of phrase and questions it, confused.

"Not much else?"

Gale caught on to that wording as well. It implies that there is something that could be done, something in the realm of possibility but only just. A sigh from the first man.

"If she were married, she could get out of it, but, doesn't seem like she's so much as talked to a boy since she slugged Yarrow Davis when she was twelve," he says, chortling at his own joke.

It's a joke, but it yellows Gale's complexion as he takes some coins from Sae. Madge Undersee has talked to a boy since she was twelve. She talked to him; she talked to Gale Hawthorne every Sunday when he would bring her strawberries and every day during Katniss' games. All to abandon him when Katniss returned. All to save his miserable life with morphling. Gale is stalking away, jaw locked and stomach turned when he hears something that brings unbidden nightmares to the forefront of his mind. Something that changes his life forever.

"Damn shame too. Pretty and fragile girl like that won't last two minutes in a home."

Pretty and fragile girl. He knows what he has to do for his pretty and fragile girl.

* * *

They gave Madge two weeks. Two weeks alone in a completely empty house, two weeks to grieve. They left her alone for two weeks of packing, of mourning, of sobbing, and of saying goodbye. Then, it was back to business as usual. The new Mayor, one certainly more inline with President Snow's vision than her own father was, is moving in tomorrow, and Madge will be moving out tonight. Moving to the children's home. Her new home. She brushes a strand of hair behind her head and looks back down to her open suitcase. Not much to pack, really. Her fine frippery will be useless where she is going. Her school dress hangs limply from one hand as she thinks of all the rumors she's heard about The Home. If Romulus Thread had any say in her fate, she can be certain that every one of the stories, each worse than the one that came before, are entirely true. She's prepared to say goodbye to both her virtue and the straightness of her nose by way of her future housemates' force. Her mouth dries and she feels tears she thought she had already cried well in her eyes.

She is knocked from herself by the sound of gasping for breath and her door opening. She turns on a dime, wide eyes meeting Gale Hawthorne's. Shock stiffens her entire body. Gale struggles for breath, having sprinted across the district to be here. She hasn't seen him in weeks.

"Madge," he finally croaks, his eyes full of purpose even as he leans against the doorframe, trying to control his heart rate.

It's all too much for Madge to take in and she feels a bitter taste flood her mouth as her face contorts into a snarl of a sarcastic smile. She turns back to the suitcase on her bed, tossing a cheap ball of fabric that will pass as a dress atop the rest of her stowed belongings.

"Here to rub it in, Gale?" she bites, struggling against the bile rising up in her throat. She will not cry in front of him. With a wry laugh, she shrugs and spits the words out, "I know. My, how the might have fallen, right?"

It's an invitation for him to do something. Anything to make her feel something. If he's here to laugh, she hopes he just gets it over and done with. This will not be the most enduring humiliation she bears today, she knows. She waits for him to begin the taunting, to begin the pointing and laughing, to rub in her face the terrors she will suffer beside the brutish boys and the scrappy girls. But he merely blurts:

"I want to marry you."

Madge doesn't splutter or stammer or gasp or any number of cliches made absurd by romance books. It takes her a moment to record, rewind and replay that moment in her mind before she truly processes what it is he has just declared. Marry. He wants. Madge. He wants to marry Madge.

"What?"

She turns to face him again, scowling in confusion, as she waits for him to explain himself. All of the walls around her heart cautiously begin to slide open, allowing the young woman inside to come peeking out at the young man standing before her. The anger and acid in her head retreat as Gale begins to speak. His heart slams its fists against the prison walls of his chest, begging to be let out and speak to her directly. But Gale attempts to let logic, not his heart, lead him. Because if he lets his heart have its way, Gale would have kissed the tears away from her cheeks the moment she turned and looked at him.

"I can save you. They can't take you to that place if you're married," he declares, finally gaining control of his breath.

The reality of that proposal strikes Madge and she runs a hand through her dirty, blonde hair. She supposes she should take a shower before she leaves, knowing there will be no more hot showers after today, but she put the goodbyes of the house off for as long as possible. She shakes her head and folds her arms across her chest, pushing her chest toward her spine to make herself as small as possible. It is her hope that she comes across final, with no room for argument, but Gale is determined. Every time he blinks, he sees someone's hands invading Madge's body, breaking her spirit. He means nothing to her, he knows that, but he can save her. He can save her from a fate perhaps worse than her parents'.

"I'm not going to marry you," Madge scoffs.

He's fighting for her, just as she fought for him across miles of frozen, Capitol occupied snow to save his life. It's his turn. It's his duty. But… It's more than that, he finds, as his voice drops of its own accord and his eyes lose their glare. His tone is gentle, hesitant. Maybe even a little afraid. He's not good at these sorts of things and he is sure it's all coming out wrong, but, God, is he trying.

"I know it won't be the life you always wanted. Not the life you imagined," he concedes before offering her hope, "But I'll be a good husband."

Madge, apparently, isn't through with tears as she previously thought. Because halfway through his proposal, she feels their hot tracks run down her cheeks, drawing abstract art down her already salty skin. An unidentifiable ache kicks in her chest as she watches his sincere eyes make a promise. She knows enough about Gale to know that promises mean something. Hawthornes do not go back on promises. And he's making one to her. This strong, wonderful, brave man is making her a promise. The tears come before she even realizes how gloriously painful it feels to have him stitch the pieces of her fragile, heaving heart back together. Then, his hands are on either side of her face, his touch gentle and his fingers marred with work scars, his skin absorbing the salty teardrops running away from her eyes. He continues, his voice the steady hammer of a pickaxe. It holds all the hope of that moment just before sunrise.

"You don't have to love me," he begins before renewing his gentility with a whisper of a few simple words, "But I'll love you. I promise."

Madge pulls herself from his grasp, using the sleeve of her sweater to wipe at her running nose. A ridiculous sight, she's sure, and the imagining of it makes her laugh.

"Those seem like easy promises to break," she mutters, casting him a sweetly mending look.

Gale fills in a gap for her.

"Twig promises. That's what we call them in the Seam."

He smiles and she's disarmed. Retreating back to her castle of logic, she tries to think this through.

"What do you want in return? You won't just do me this favor," she winces at that word…. It seems so inappropriate. This is beyond a favor. This is salvation, "and expect nothing in return."

Gale fiddles in his pocket as he crosses closer to the beautiful woman across the room from him.

"You saved my life. Now, I'm saving yours."

Gale pulls something out of his pocket and hands it to her without ever once glancing at it. It's nearly weightless, but that alone makes Madge look at it. And, when she does, she knows, marriage or not, she will love this man until the day she dies. It's an empty morphling bottle. And, corked inside, is a simple gold wedding band. She looks up at him with a million questions in her eyes, but he merely smiles.

"We do funny things for the people we love, don't we?"

* * *

**Hello, my friends! So, I posted this little drabble on tumblr yesterday and it got a pretty good response (thanks for that, by the way!) and a few people asked that I develop it into a full-fledged story! I really just wanted to put this first chapter out there to see what people thought! If you would like to see it developed into a full length (probably 10 or so chapters, around the same length as Load the Dice) story, please let me know! Also, any ideas you have for a story like that would be great! Ideas, thoughts, anything! Just send them my way in a review! I love to hear what you all think! :) Hope you enjoyed the story!**


	2. Chapter 2

Madge doesn't speak for a long while after Gale's declaration. She simply looks at the morphling bottle turned ring box in her shaking hands, seeing and unseeing all at once. She had no idea… She never wanted Gale to know what she had done for him the night of the whipping; it was always her greatest fear that he would one day want to repay the favor. And now, there's a feeling in the pit of her stomach that confirms what she already knew. Gale Hawthorne feels like he owes her, she thinks. Nothing more, nothing less. It tears at the seams of her heart and of the millions of words she's learned in her lifetime, she cannot string together a sentence to explain to him what this feels like. She's saved. But, looking at the boy she's loved for a long time, she knows she's also damned. Condemned to a lifetime with a man trying to repay a debt he has no business repaying.

"Madge?" He asks after a moment of silence.

She doesn't acknowledge that he has spoken, and Gale struggles to mask the pain he's feeling at what he feels is coming rejection. He just offered her his life, and her only response is to look like someone just delivered her a body bag. Eventually, her weight breaks under her, and she sits on the edge of her bed. Back straight, legs dangling over the edge, she keeps her eyes focused on the morphling bottle in her hands.

"Whose ring is this?" She finally asks.

The trinket of marriage clinks around in its glass casing as Madge examines it even closer. This certainly isn't the question Gale expected Madge to ask. But, he gives her the best answer he can, shoving his hands together as his face slides into a mask of indifference, shrugging as he looks away from her. Madge prays upon prayer that this isn't a ring that has any sentimental value to him. She couldn't stand it if that were the case.

"I," Gale hesitates, "I bought it off someone at the Hob."

She almost breathes an audible sigh of relief at that, but instead, she sits with that knowledge and thinks of her options. Neither are desirable. Either she goes into the Home and resigns herself to a life of being used and buried or she marries Gale Hawthorne and resigns herself to being nothing more than a lifelong duty for him. He'll be a martyr and she'll be a victim. _But at least you'll be taken care of. At least you can pretend it's real_, a voice in the back of her head whispers.

"Okay," Madge says, looking up at him.

Grey eyes meet blue and Gale lets hope rise, unbidden, to his voice. He doesn't know it, not consciously, but he lights up.

"Okay?" He repeats.

She nods, unable to contain the briefest of smiles when she sees the look he's giving her.

"I'll marry you."

It is everything Gale can do to keep himself from pulling her into his arms and scooping her into a kiss right there and then.

* * *

An hour later, they're waiting in the lobby of the Justice Building, sitting side-by-side on a wooden bench straight from District Seven. The entire building is a flurry of activity, with the arrival of the new mayor, but a timid secretary assured them that someone would be around shortly to administer the vows. Madge is wearing her favorite white dress and her leather suitcase with the brass clasps sits like an idle lapdog on the floors beside her ankles. They haven't spoken much since she agreed to the marriage. It's been mostly sidelong looks and Gale's promises that things will turn out alright. With a marriage, he reminds her, the district gives the newlywed couple a cheap house on the edge of the District, so at least they won't have to spend their first married night in a room with his two brothers. It certainly won't be what she was used to in The Town, but Madge knows she will do her best to make it her home. Madge casts another glance at the man who will, in only moments, be her husband, and laughs to herself.

"Your hair is a mess. C'mere," she says.

He turns toward her and she places on hand on his cheek to steady him while the other hand rises to tame his unruly, dark hair. As if of its own accord, his own calloused, overworked hand rises to cover the smaller one resting on his face, lacing his fingers around her palm.

"I could get used to this," he jokes, his pulse tap dancing along the skin of her hand.

A spark of something bubbles up from the tip of Madge's toes all the way to her heart and she can almost imagine that he means that. She pulls herself from his grasp and shyly looks down at the floor as she curses herself for losing control of her emotions like that. Somewhere in the dark recesses of her mind, Madge knows that she will not survive this marriage, this attachment, if she allows herself to love him any more than she already does. She knows that someday she'll wake up and be in the middle of being in love with him and then he'll remind her that this is only his debt repaid and the heart she lost to him will be shattered completely.

"Yeah. Me too," she says.

The walls around her heart start building their way heavenward.

* * *

Madge tries not to think about how, at this very moment, as she and Gale are standing before a singularly bored looking officer of the Justice Building, another man is sitting in her father's desk in her father's office taking an oath to assume her father's position as Mayor. A lump rises in her throat and she swallows it down as the officer opens his book and flips to the page concerning the marriage rites.

Marriage. Another thought that sends a wave of sickness to her stomach.

"Hey, Gale?" she whispers to him as the official before her begins muttering the vows under his breath.

Gale's entire focus is on the stout man officiating their marriage, but he hears the nerves in Madge's voice and can't help but answer her.

"Mhm?" he hums, quietly.

"I want you to promise me something."

There is an urgency in her whisper that he finds he cannot deny.

"Of course," he breathes.

The officiant asks them to turn and face each other, somehow so wrapped up in his annoyance that he must be doing this that he hardly notices his two halves of a marriage whole whispering to one another. He continues some pre-written speech, talking though no one is listening, about the importance of the marriage vow because marriage is symbolic of one's devotion to Panem. In a sense, he recites, mechanically repeating the things that he has been told to say, one is married to the nation just as one is married to their spouse.

"Please don't ever talk about love again," Madge says, not meeting Gale's eyes.

For the first time, his voice speaks above a whisper.

"What?" He asks.

He will never understand Madge Undersee, though he will soon have a lifetime to figure her out. Madge gulps and looks up at him, her eyes as honest as can be. She cannot remember the last time her hands shook so visibly, so constantly, so violently.

"You said we do funny things for the people we love. Please don't talk about love ever again."

There is a beat and Gale watches as she gulps down emotion she is fighting so hard to keep locked away.

"I can't take it," she finishes.

More from the man in the white uniform about the sacrifices we make in marriage being intricately connected to the sacrifices we must make for Panem. We are married to the nation. We are married to the nation. We are married to the nation. Hearing the desperation in her voice, Gale nods once.

"Okay."

The vows begin. _ Do you, Gale Hawthorne, take Madge Undersee as your wife. Will you protect her as your government protects you_… Gale tunes it out, content to watch Madge's eyes fight with him.

"You have to promise, Gale," she begs.

It's just at that moment that the officer of the Justice Building asks for Gale's response to the marriage rite. Without taking his eyes off Madge, without forgetting that this is a promise, he tucks her hands into his and mutters the customary response:

"I do."

* * *

And just like that, they're married. It's funny, Madge thinks as Gale slides the simple band, fashioned to look like a golden twig wrapped around her finger, that all of the emotions and thought and planning would amount to this. A few words, three signatures, and a key to a new home, a new life. There is no "kiss the bride" in this ceremony. They are simply released to their future, unprepared and unable to know all the will soon come to pass.

When they turn the block after a long walk through the Seam toward their new shack of a house, Madge can hear the celebration all the way down the street.

"Gale-?" she asks, looking up at him, confusion plastering her face as her ringed hand is locked in his right one.

He smirks.

"It wouldn't be a toasting without our friends and family, would it?"

A genuine smile breaks across Madge's face as she takes in the sight before her. Their house is nothing to speak of, really, but on the porch that may collapse any minute, stands, well, everyone. Peeta holds hands with Katniss who stands next to Prim who nudges Rory who grabs Vick by the collar who is complaining to his mother who is carrying Posy in her arms. Madge doesn't even have time to feel empty at the notable absence of her own family, because the moment she and Gale cross their fence line, the entire brigade is upon them.

Mrs. Hawthorne sets down Posy in order to grab up Madge in her arms for a hug as the rest of the crowd shifts to Gale. There are tears in her eyes, but the blonde in her embrace pretends not to notice. They remain there, in a still sort of quiet, for longer than perhaps they should have. Hazelle knows. She knows everything and her thin arms seem to whisper that this will all turn out alright. Madge keeps herself hidden behind the wall she has been constructing, locking away the tears and the apologies that are brimming to the surface.

Finally, Hazelle lets her go, putting her hands at the girl's shoulders to keep her at arms' length.

"Let's have a good look at you," she says with a smile.

It's intended as a joke, a jest that will eventually lead to an underhanded comment about her child-bearing hips or how her smile will one day be perfect for singing to Hazelle's grandchildren, but then, the older woman spots something, her hand flying to her mouth in surprise.

"Oh, Madge," she whispers.

The young bride's eyes go wide and she inspects herself for any sign of things out of place.

"What?" She asks, thinking she has done something wrong.

Hazelle smiles, her hands relaxing from her face to rest over her heart. Her eyes are watery, but women in the Seam do not cry. They're made of coal dust and love and they do not cry.

"You're wearing my ring."

Madge splutters. Gale said this was a cheap ring he bought at the Hob.

"Pardon?"

Hazelle's smile is all-knowing and she points to the band wrapped around the fourth finger on Madge's left hand.

"That's the ring Gale's father proposed to me with. I gave it to Gale a few years ago for safekeeping."

* * *

**So... What do you think, guys? I am so interested to hear what you guys have to say about this story. ANY input would be so wonderful and I would be so grateful! Please drop me a review and let me know what you're thinking. :)Thank you so much for reading,**


	3. Chapter 3

Gale knows that the natural state of the world is chaos. He sees it in the quiet of the forest and in the hum of activity in the mines. Even in silence, the world vibrates with chaos. Which is why Madge is something of a mystery to him. Here she is, her life completely flipped on its head, and she simply smiles and nods, shakes hands and laughs when the occasion calls for it. A true politician is Madge Undersee. Gale is almost certain she's no anomaly, that there must be terror or heartbreak somewhere within her. He can feel it in the way she clings to his hand and the timid way her lips brush his during the actual ceremony of the Toasting. She's fragile, breaking, but God, does he admire her for pretending the cracks are just decoration.

Their toasting goes just about how Gale anticipated. His mother cried and Prim looked on with wide, glittering eyes. Posy couldn't stop asking what was going on and Peeta provided the bread while Vick rolled his eyes near continuously. Katniss pulled him aside at one point, asking him if this was really what he wanted. His answer was immediate and pointed.

"Of course."

You marry the person you can't live without.

"But I didn't even know you knew Madge," Katniss pressed, her voice insistent and slightly accusatory.

Gale shrugs and allows himself to indulge for a moment. He remembers everything, everything that happened between he and Madge and for a brief second, he flips through the memories like pages in a book.

"Madge was here. When you left for The Games."

Katniss winces, but Gale presses on. She doesn't want to hear this. God, does she not want to hear this. But she asked the question, so Gale will give her the answer.

"We were the last two left standing in the square after the Bloodbath. And every day after, we just sort of... found each other."

He rubs his chin with the palm of his hand, pressing against his jaw as if to relieve tension there.

"She was a Saint. Saint Undersee. Remember when I used to call her that? She just did everything she could, y'know? She was always there."

Trailing off, Gale puts his hands in his pockets, wiping the smile from his face and turning serious.

"And I think she thought she wasn't welcome anymore after you came home. Like... She was something temporary for me or something," he mumbles, knowing he has shown Katniss perhaps a little too much.

It's surprising to Gale, how high his emotions seem to run at those few, simple words. It's something he never allowed himself to think about. Madge's sudden disappearance from his life. But now that he's saying it, speaking his speculation into the world, he realizes how deep it actually cut him. How much he missed her when she wasn't there.

"But she wasn't?" Katniss asks.

Across the room, Gale sees Madge scoop Posy up in her arms, smiling as she goes. Gale remembers many such afternoons in the kitchen of his house, watching the Games with his siblings as Madge did everything she could to keep him from falling apart. He shakes his head. Madge is anything but temporary.

"No, she wasn't."

* * *

The house is still and quiet when Madge finally gathers the strength to ask the question she's had twirling in her mind all day. She's washing the dishes in the sink, recalling the duties of a dutiful housewife, all of the training she was given as a child coming back to her in a swirl of performatives and checklists. Gale has saved her life. The least she can do is act the part. The wedding band weighs more than the world on her shoulders and it sits on the counter beside her as she was too nervous to wear it while doing the wash. The Toasting earlier in the day took so much out of her, but she can't sit idle.

"Gale?" She asks timidly, hands still working at a particularly clingy piece of stew molded to the pan given to them by Gale's mother as a wedding present.

He's sitting on a hard backed wooden chair, cleaning his boots for tomorrow morning's call to the Mines. Gale didn't know his father long, but he remembers even today that the man always has freshly shined boots. Always. A sign of pride in himself and his family. Gale does the same, a little tribute to his father, a daily reminder of the man he hardly knew.

"Hm?" He mumbles, adding more grease to the rag in his hand.

Her clear voice cuts the companionable quiet of the room, stopping his actions in his tracks. Suddenly, the boots don't matter. Work doesn't matter. His boots could stay dirty and he could never show up to work again, that is how little he cares in that moment about anything but her. There is weight to her tone, heavy and undeniable.

"Why did you give me your mother's ring?"

Silence. Then, the sound of a rag running circles along the leather of a work boot once more. Gale resumes his actions, grinding his jaw into place. Maybe if he can pretend, maybe he can keep this argument at bay. He holds his breath. He knew this would upset her. He _knew _it.

"What are you talking about?" He responds.

Madge drops the scrub brush into the dirty water and leans against the counter. There isn't a shade over the small window yet, something she hopes to fix come tomorrow, so she can see her reflection in the glass. Disappointment in him. Conflict in herself. Greasy blonde hair and tired eyes. Drawing in a deep breath, she turns her head only enough to look in his general direction before speaking.

"She saw it and told me. You really think you could keep that secret?" She scoffs.

Scrub. Scrub. Scrub. He doesn't answer. His boots reflect in the dim light, but he just keeps scrubbing, refusing to look at his mirror image in the shining leather. She slides her ring back on her finger, feeling its weight press down on her. Madge's light steps, her bare feet brushing against the old wood of the floor, hardly making a noise, cross the room. Kneeling in front of his chair, she puts a hand on his, stilling the frantic, near-crazed motion of the rag against the leather shoe. The muscles in his arm instantly relax. The tension in his shoulder slackens as he sighs. Consciously or unconsciously, Gale will never be able to tell, her grip tightens so she is holding his hand in hers, fingers tucked under his strong, callous palm, skin getting stained as the grease rubs from his flesh to hers.

"Why did you give me your mother's ring?" She asks.

There is a tender resolve in her eyes, her quiet voice consoling and gentle, but final all the same. Gale looks up from their interlocked hands and examines her before giving the most honest answer he can. He knows that Madge wants no skin in this marriage. She wants simplicity and detachment. He can sense it radiating off of her. But he won't, he _can't _live that way. He's going to love her and that's just that.

"You're the only wife I ever plan on having, Madge. You really think I was going to give you something pawned off at Sae's?"

Gulping down a wave of emotion, he rambles.

"I heard about you going to that _place_ a few days ago and couldn't get it out of my head. I went to my mother the next day and asked her what she thought. She told me how to get a license from the Justice Building and about the house and everything... And here we are. "

That isn't _quite _how it happened, but Gale thinks another tiny lie can't hurt. What happened in reality was quite different. His mother asked first if she was pregnant. Then, she asked if this marriage was out of pity. Finally, Gale explained everything. Everything he knows Madge will not want to hear. Everything about how kissing Katniss nearly broke his heart because somewhere in the middle he realized she wasn't Madge and never could be and about how he takes inexplicably long routes to the Victor's Village just to pass by her house for a glimpse of her. Everything about how he would have done the same thing for Katniss- married her, that is- but not in the same way. Not with his whole heart.

"I couldn't let you go. Okay? Is that what you want to hear?"

Madge cannot answer that question. So, she simply withdraws her hand with a quiet dignity and rises to her feet before walking to the door of their bedroom. Hand on the doorframe, she asks in her hesitation:

"What do you expect of me?"

Gale's eyebrows knit in confusion, leaning back in his chair to catch a glimpse of her.

"What're you on about?"

Gulping, Madge looks at the floor and plays with the band around her finger. She struggles with the words of her response.

"As a _wife, _what are you expecting?"

Her cheeks blush scarlet and Gale laughs. A real belly laugh that sets his shoulder shaking and his head backwards.

"Shit, Madge, nothing like that."

His laughter doesn't make her feel any better about the situation. She was taught a long time ago what would be expected of her as a wife. Her mother was hardly well, but when she was, breeding Madge to be a woman of good carriage was always one of her top priorities.

"But I'm the only wife you're ever going to have, right?" She asks, skeptically.

Gale returns to scrubbing his boots, but not before offering her the most reassuring look he has.

"Not until you're comfortable, okay? Not until you want to."

Unsure that she will ever be comfortable, but cautiously optimistic all the same, Madge leaves him with his boots and prepares herself for bed.

* * *

_It's a nightmare. The same one she's had every night._

_"You have been accused of high crimes and treason against the nation of Panem. Do you deny it?"_

_Her father's voice is clear and strong and he says the very thing she was praying he wouldn't._

_"I do not deny it."_

_Tears slip down her face, but her father keeps his chin up. He has a black eye from where the peacekeeper knocked him out earlier this morning in his study as he poured over transmissions from the Rebels._

_"As Mayor, if you denounce the dissidents and repent of your crimes, you may escape unpunished."_

_Please father, she prays, denounce and repent. Denounce and repent._

_"My conscience cannot allow it. I do what I do for the good of my people."_

_This isn't a trial, she wants to scream. This is a massacre._

_"Then you know the punishment. For you and your wife both."_

_Madge screams out this time, unable to control herself._

_"You can't have her!"_

_But have her mother, they do. Lashes in the public square that very day. And another trial in the evening, held by candlelight with Madge and a platoon of peacekeepers and God himself watching as Thread wiped her mother's blood from his whip and questioned her father again._

_"Mayor Undersee, do you deny your part in a potential Rebellion against the Capitol?"_

_He watches his wife's blood drop to the floor. Drip. Drop. A stray blot stains Thread's boots._

_"I do not now nor will I ever."_

_Thread circles Madge's father and pats him on the shoulder. More bloodstains come off on the Mayor's coat. His wife's blood. Madge feels sickness rise in her throat and no one pays attention as she empties her stomach into the nearest bin. The two Peacekeepers guarding her do not even flinch._

_"Then, you know the punishment. For you and your wife, both."_

_The Mayor meets Thread's gaze, intense and mean._

_"So be it."_

_They dragged all three of them into the streets the next morning. Shoved Madge into the crowd. A mandatory viewing. Just like The Games. No one comforted her. Her father didn't look at her. Her mother could hardly stand for the agonizing pain in her back. They lined the two of them against a wall in The Square, a pair of lovers dying for a dying cause. Still morning breeze. Soft, rolling clouds. And the sound of Madge's sobs echoing in the square. _

"Madge?"

_Her mother's screams._

"Madge?"

_Gunshots._

"Madge?"

_Her father's body hitting the pavement._

"Madge!"

Madge shoots up from the bed, the sheets sticking to her sweat-drenched body. Her breathing is uncontrollable. She is inconsolable. Then, two grey eyes meet hers and a pair of strong hands slide up to her cheeks. Gale clings to her desperately, trying to draw her back to him, pull her away from the horror show in her mind. Worry is etched in every feature of Gale's stone face. He gulps heavily and searches her distressed eyes for some sort of answer.

"Nightmare," she gasps, "Just a nightmare."

She doesn't want Gale worrying about her. She doesn't want Gale's sympathy. She should have slept on the couch. She knew this damn nightmare would arrive again. But then, he's wiping her cheeks and she realizes that it is not only sweat but tears, too, soaking her skin.

"I'm sorry," she mutters, "I'm sorry."

About everything, she wants to say. About waking you up. About screaming. About crying. About not finishing the dishes and bringing you that morphling and making you feel like you had to _marry me. _

But Gale merely pulls her into his chest, sliding them both down under the covers once more. He gently strokes her tangled, knotted hair, his firm grip around her waist holding her back in reality. He says the only thing he can think to say, knowing how flimsy his words are in the face of everything she's suffered. His words will not save her, but he finds that he must say them anyway.

"We're gonna be okay, Madge," he begins.

Without thinking, he kisses the top of her head. Seeing her wracked in the middle of a nightmare was easily one of the most terrifying, gut twisting things Gale has ever witnessed firsthand. There was no peace in her sleep. Just awe-inspiring torment. Feeling her heart slow against his chest relaxes him, brings him back down from the fear of his own.

"I promise," he finishes.

He feels her lips quirk against his skin as her breathing steadies. She tries to match him. In, out, in, out. She closes her eyes and listens to his heartbeat; the melody it plays against his ribcage is a lullaby all on its own.

"Sounds like a twig promise," she teasingly reminds him in a hiccuping, breathy voice, trying to forget the all-too real images of her nightmare that flash every time she closes her eyes.

Maybe Gale holds her a little tighter then.

"Just let me be nice to you," he whispers, a smile coming upon his lips.

A few stray tears drop onto Gale's sleep shirt, trickling unbidden from Madge's cheeks. Her sobs have stopped, but the remnants of her nightmare still taunt her mind. The moonlight from the window plays on the gold of her ring.

"Have I said thank you yet?" Madge asks.

Gale is dozing off, his eyes heavy and his heart leaden at the thought of returning to the Mines in the morning. Even so, he manages a smirk and a few sleepy words.

"What for? I haven't done anything yet."

You marry the person you can't live without.

* * *

**Sorry it has taken me so long to update! It's just that some AWESOME reviewers gave me so much to think about and so many plot holes to fill that it took me a while to get things sorted for this chapter! I hope you all enjoyed it. Please leave me your thoughts and feelings and predictions in such in a review! I love to hear from you guys. Really, it is the best. Also, there is a shakespeare reference somewhere in this chapter. if you correctly identify it, I will write you a one-shot of your choice! Any prompt, any universe, all gadge! Hope you all enjoyed! Please review!**


	4. Chapter 4

_Clink_.

His axe hits the stone of the mine walls and Gale hears his failures in the reverb.

_Clink_.

This plan wasn't well thought through at all. When he woke up this morning, Madge was on the other side of the bed, somehow having escaped his grasp during the night. She was shivering.

_Clink. _

He can't even afford a decent blanket for his own wife.

_Clink. _

And he can't even remember having seen Madge smiling once on her wedding day.

_Clink. _

Shit. He can't even do marriage right.

_Clink._

He didn't think this through.

_Clink._

He was impulsive and stupid and didn't think this marriage through.

_Clink._

Now his paycheck isn't going to cover the both of them, not now with production beneath the earth of District Twelve at an all-time low.

_Clink._

The Capitol is punishing them. Punishing them all.

_Clink._

But sometimes, like now, Gale gets the sinking feeling of dread that President Snow is out to get him personally.

_Clink. _

And now, he's pulled Madge down with him.

* * *

Gale's mood is decidedly different from yesterday. As different as Sunday and Monday are, Gale _feels _that way. When he walked through this door only twenty-four hours ago, he felt _hope. _ That delicious poison that coated his veins as he held his wife's hand and took the place in for the first time. But today, he feels every mistake. Every mistake from the first day he met her until now settles into his skin, weighing him down into the floorboards. The screen door needs patching, but Gale pushes through it anyway, straight into the kitchen.

If he weren't so singularly miserable, he might have laughed. Holding a sheet of paper in one hand- a sheet of paper that upon further inspection, carries his mother's handwriting and her recipe for parse, a meal that his mother made whenever there wasn't enough food in the house for a proper stew-, Madge furrows her brow and seems oblivious to the fact that she's covered in flour and grease and whatever else his mother gave her to cook with. When the door slams shut, she looks up with smiling, even proud eyes. Ignorant to her pride, Gale sinks into his chair and begins unlacing his boots, unbuttoning his work overalls to reveal a tired shirt beneath.

"Dinner'll be ready in a minute," Madge says, trying her best to be everything her mother wanted her to be even as she fights to find the floor in this dizzying dance she's trying to attempt.

She goes back to her recipe and Gale eases his aching muscles down into his chair, relaxing as best he can. The silence is not quite tense, but it is far from light. Waves of sharpness radiate off of Gale, spinning madly in his wife's direction. Madge thinks she might say something, but everything that comes to mind sounds offensive even in her mind. "How were the mines today?" or "How was work?" both feel inherently wrong.

"You're less talkative today than you were yesterday."

That's her bright idea of a conversation starter. Now, to be completely fair, since her parents' death and Katniss' training for the Quell, Madge hasn't had much practice in conversation. But even so, she scolds herself for the thoughtless remark. Gale's sharp tongue gives a barbarous assault back to her, his mood as scuffed as his boots.

"I didn't work a twelve hour shift in a mine yesterday," he snaps, his eyes burning.

Everything is unfair, Gale thinks to himself. He's just worked his ass off for coins with Snow's face on them and they won't feed him and his wife through the rest of the week. Everything in his body hurts and there isn't enough hot water for a bath, not after Madge has just cooked. His wife looks so damn breathlessly beautiful and he doesn't have the guts or the permission to kiss her like he's itching to. Of course, they indwell completely different universes of injustices, but in this moment Gale cannot distinguish the painful from the slightly less painful. Things are so unfair and it may just be partly his fault.

Reeling back from the sudden alteration in his mood, Madge bites her lip. What stupid question, she chides herself, bowing her head as she begins serving up supper.

"Right," she nods.

But this isn't what Gale wanted. He doesn't want a woman who will cook and clean and dutifully agree to his every opinion. This isn't the Madge he knows. The Madge he knew a few months ago would have challenged him, rolled her eyes and made a quip of some kind. But this girl in front of him….She is a little unfamiliar, changed. Not that it should surprise him, he thinks as he recalls all that has gone on, all that he has failed to help her endure.

"Madge?" He asks, the edge evident in his voice from the moment before, his hand clenched in a painful fist on the tabletop.

She hums a response as she rips a rag in two, starting the tear with her teeth as she attempts to make two napkins of the tattered fabric. Madge may live in the Seam now, but her mother would roll over in her grave if she knew Madge was serving a meal without proper linens. She ignores Gale's domestic frustration, instead focusing on doing all she can to live.

"Hm?"

He shoots her a deadpan look, catching her off guard as she attempts to balance the cheap bowls in her hands.

"You're trying too hard," he clues her in.

Now, he's just trying to crawl under her skin and live there. Not that he wants her angry, not that he wants to upset her, but… He wants her back. The real Madge that he thought he was marrying, not this shadow of her. He thinks that the best way to her is to be the Gale she used to know. That fool of a boy who loved nothing more than see Madge squirm. He hasn't lost his anger, nor has he lost the chip of unfairness on his shoulder.

"Oh. I'm sorry," she says, laying the bowls down.

He swallows hard and takes dinner gratefully, rolling his eyes with a shake of his head.

"I know you are," he responds.

They eat in silence. Awkward, terse silence. Every muscle in Gale's body aches from work today and Madge struggles to find herself in this new world. When she woke this morning to an empty bed, the memories of the night before flooded her. Gale comforting her after the nightmare. Thinking of it makes her stomach turn. Even now, she feels defensive, protective of herself. Like the concrete around her heart cannot be allowed to crack.

"I'm going to try and find work tomorrow."

Gale is no longer attempting to pull Madge from herself. Now, he's reverted back to bitter with that simple sentence out of Madge's lips. His body hurts too much and the coins in his pockets are too few for him to have any humor about the situation, about her attempt at normality.

"You've never worked a goddamn day in your life, Undersee," he scoffs, reverting back to his childish denunciations of her station. A station she no longer has.

Madge's response is instantaneous, a reflex as uncontrollable as her very breathing. It surprises her almost as much as it surprises Gale.

"Hawthorne."

Her back is to him, closing the new curtain over the kitchen window. Gale furrows his brow, not entirely sure he heard her right.

"What?"

Voice gathering a strength she doesn't remember possessing for the longest time, Madge looks at him, the fingers on her right hand playing with the ring on her left.

"Hawthorne. My name is Madge Hawthorne."

Their eyes meet, and Gale is certain he's watching the beginnings of a smile in her eyes. Her words are like a punch to his gut. The air leaves his lungs and his body slackens at the impact. He's ashamed. Ashamed that he let himself lose sight of her. Of how much he cares about her.

"I'm sorry," he apologizes, looking at the floor, the razor edge of his voice hard to shake, even now.

Sure enough, the smile that started in her eyes spreads stiffly to her lips. This isn't the first time she's smiled since her parents were taken, but this is the first one she remembers, the first one she tucks away between the cracks of her heart. With a quirk of her eyebrows, she shrugs and turns to start work on the dishes.

"I know you are," she teases.

_Now_, Gale thinks,_ there is the Madge I know_.

* * *

_The Mandatory Viewing was over, but he couldn't move. The screens in the town square were blank, turned off to conserve the energy and send it to the four corners of the District, but Gale just... Gale found it impossible to command his body to move. He's a strong guy, but he just couldn't seem to move his solid limbs. It took most of his energy to command his breathing to continue. In. Out. In. Out. Katniss made it out of the Bloodbath. Katniss made it this far. She's alive. She's one step closer to making it home. One step closer to surviving._

_The final body was out of the square when Gale saw her. Still there, where she was when he saw her in the crowd earlier that morning, a few feet ahead of him, about ten steps to the left of him. Madge Undersee. The Mistress and Queen of all she surveyed. The golden child of District Twelve with the world on a string. She had everything, Gale thought._

_But she couldn't seem to move either._

_They just stood their in the public square for a long while, each ignoring the other as the Peacekeepers around them made their rounds. Their tongues were numb and their muscles paralyzed. It was the flickering of street lamps, rising to their occasion at sunset, that broke Madge from her spell. Movements mechanical, almost as if someone is pulling her limbs by string, she uncrossed her hands from behind her back, moving her head to look around in every direction. It was like she hadn't noticed that everyone was gone, like The Games had been playing behind her eyes ever since the screens went dark. _

_It's then that she saw Gale. She debated for a moment if it was even worth it to go over to him. She knew he wouldn't speak to her. She knew he didn't want to speak to her. Hell, if the roles were reversed, she couldn't imagine Gale trying to help her. But, without her permission, her feet shuffled along the cobblestones, her arms crossing over her chest and eyes cast downward, suddenly hyper-aware of the black eyes of the Peacekeepers following her every move. She stood beside Gale, wondering if it was her heart or his that she heard ringing in her ears. The first thing that came to mind was the first thing out of her mouth._

_"I hate this," she whispered._

_Of all the things Gale expected her to say, that was not one of them. He expected an 'it will be alright,' or 'Katniss is strong. She'll come home. Don't worry.' But, no. She surprised him. _

_"Look, I know we aren't friends. Not really."_

_She seemed to reconsider that word choice, remembering their last encounter outside of Katniss' door after the Reaping where he would neither look or speak to her. _

_"Well, I guess we aren't friends at all," she said, a little sad, a little discouraged, "But this isn't going to be easy for anyone."_

_Gale didn't answer, not even as she finished the sentence expectantly, as though she expected him to offer up something of his own. _

_"So..." She trailed off, playing with a hole in the hem of her dress, "You know where to find me. If you need me."_

_Instantly, she felt Gale bristle._

_"Which you probably won't," she defended, "But if you do."_

_She nodded once, a little bow of her head as if to say... I know you'll never take me up on this offer._

_"I'm not such a bad friend to have," she finished. _

_And as quickly as she appeared, she was gone._

* * *

Now, as Gale watches her disappear behind the door of their bedroom, the dishes done and restored to their lonely places on the kitchen shelf, he thinks about that day in the square, that first mandatory viewing, and wonders if he loved her then, even as far back as then.

* * *

**I know I promised some people some other flashbacks in this chapter, but don't worry! You'll still get what I promised, just not yet! :) So... Please review and let me know what you thought of the chapter! You all are wonderful and I cannot wait to hear what you think!**


	5. Chapter 5

In her old life, the life she had not but two weeks ago, Madge never had to ask for help. Things were easy for her, effortless. Perhaps Gale was right in his quick judgements of her. Pretty dress and _just the way it is _ring in her ears as gospel now, not as the jibes of a bitter boy who had to grow up before he was ready. She never did anything she couldn't do for herself. And now, she feels as though she can't do anything without someone else. Dependent. She can't sleep through the night without Gale's arms pulling her into a peaceful sleep. And yesterday…. Yesterday, she spent nearly the whole day asking someone else for help.

* * *

_"I wondered when you would show up at my door."_

_Standing outside of Hazelle Hawthorne's home, Madge picks at her fingernails, swallowing hard as she fidgets under the older woman's smile. Basket of laundry balanced on her hip and youngest child peeking out from behind her skirt, Hazelle examines the nervous young woman before her. Madge is covered in soot of the air and the fear from the pit of her stomach; it's easy for anyone, much less a woman like Hazelle, to see Madge's desperation. The politeness that Hazelle so remembers from those first few days in Madge's presence during the Games rings true even at a time like this._

_"I'm sorry to come over uninvited," she says with a reverence that strikes a chord deep within the older woman._

_Readjusting the basket on her hip and pushing the door open wide to welcome Madge into her home, the woman affectionately called Ma brushes off Madge's concern and politeness. She cannot imagine what the young girl is going through, but she knows the best thing for her now is normality. A return to the world as it is, while also finding a safe place within that world, will be important for the new life the woman is beginning._

_"Don't be ridiculous. You know you're always welcome here. After Katniss came home from the Games, I feel like I hardly saw you."_

_Madge trails behind, biting back a scoff. Hardly saw you. What a laugh. Madge knows, they both know, that Hazelle _**_never_**_ saw Madge after The Games ended. Whether he told Hazelle as much, Gale made it clear that Madge wasn't welcome, a message that Madge took to heart like armor. It's a memory that Madge likes avoiding, so she pushes it to the back of her mind, watching as Hazelle sits in her straight back chair and Posy sit on the floor at her mother's feet. Lightness follows Gale's mother wherever she goes, and Madge cannot help but look at her, even as she picks up a new stack of laundry with burdened shoulders. The woman begins folding an impractical white lace dress, one that Madge knows she owned in a life gone by. At her feet, Madge sees a shirt bearing the Mayor's crest. The new Mayor sends his shirts here just like her father used to. Something akin to dizzying seasickness washes over Madge at the sight of them. Her father used to send their laundry here. Those shirts used to be his. These dresses used to be hers. Face flushing, she folds her arms to retain her balance._

_"So, what can I do for you?" Hazelle asks, casually dragging her foot along the floor below her, pushing the stack of Mayor's shirts beneath her chair, obscuring them from Madge's view._

_"I… I…. Well…" She stammers._

_There are a million questions that Madge would ask, that she's itching to ask. Like, when will the ache in my chest go away and how long did it take before you stopped missing your husband and when will I stop missing my parents and when will I stop shaking in terror as I walk down the street in fear that Thread is going to take me away and how can you be so strong after all you've gone through when I can't sleep through the night without your son's help. But all she says is:_

_"I don't know how to cook."_

* * *

So, Madge spent the rest of the day in Hazelle's kitchen, learning how to read recipes and how to see the time of day in the position of the sun through the window. She was patient and kind and everything Madge wants so desperately to become, but today, she stands at a very different door with a very different world around her. At Katniss' door in the Victor's Village, Madge attempts to gather up her courage and the broken pieces of her pride to knock.

"Madge?"

Katniss opens the door with a brush of confusion on her defined features. She looks through just a crack, not trusting enough to open it the whole way. Since the announcement of the Quell, since Gale's whipping, since the executions, it's been hard for Katniss to open the doors to anyone. Trust isn't something she manages anymore. Madge stumbles over her words, thrown off by the look she's getting from the Victor across from her. So guarded. So defended. As if Madge were trying to make some grand offense into her life.

"I'm sorry. I just… I wasn't sure where else to go."

With no tears left to cry and resolve heavy in her bones that she wouldn't cry even if she could, Madge crosses her arms across her chest, tightening her grip around herself. She really wasn't sure where to go after what happened today. Certainly not back to Hazelle's. And not back to Gale's. She can't help but feel like she let him down today.

"What's wrong?" Katniss asks.

Her eyes betray her suspicion and hesitation. She does not move to open the door any farther, waiting for an explanation. This picture isn't coming into focus for her. Surely she and Gale aren't already having marital problems. They haven't even been married three days yet.

"I need some help," Madge confesses after a hitch of hesitation.

The wind grows chilly and blows through the Village. Madge bites her lip.

"What's wrong?" Katniss asks, stepping aside and allowing the blonde through the doorway. There is something in Madge's gaze that makes Katniss worry, an emotion she thought she had run out of after these last few months.

There are a million ways that Madge planned explaining this situation to her friend. In her head, she dreamed of sitting her down and calmly explaining the situation. But, no. Madge simply stands in the entryway of Katniss' grand home and bows her head.

"I need some money," she says in the strongest voice she has.

Katniss immediately bristles, every hair on her body standing on edge as she recalls not only two days ago standing in a little home in the Seam, listening as Gale went on and on about how marrying Madge was a happy necessity. _It is no longer just one or the other anymore_, Katniss thinks, _they are allies_.

"You and Gale need money," she corrects.

The message that simple sentence sends is affronting, and Madge no longer wonders why Katniss is the main attraction of the revolution stirring in the darkest depths of the country. She swallows and nods once, astutely and boldly.

"Yes."

Katniss shakes her head. Gale has been in trouble before and there will be no saving him until he wants to be saved. That is the way of it and Katniss knows that better than anyone. They are survivors, these two Seam kids. Katniss and Gale understand each other and the Mockingjay would never break that understanding.

"Gale will come and talk to me if he needs help," she says, dismissively.

But the young victor may have misjudged the situation. Because Madge is a survivor too. Her words are sharp, determined.

"We will starve before Gale asks you for help."

_And you know that_ is the unspoken end to that declaration. They are friends, these two girls, but Katniss cannot help the threatening feelings rising up in her throat at the other girl's words. Gale protects people. He wouldn't let Madge starve. He wouldn't. So, Katniss lashes out, her instincts built over the last few months clawing their way to the surface.

"You do realize that I am a week away from leaving for The Hunger Games, don't you?" She questions darkly and flatly, her eyes narrowing.

Tension is shattered at the sound of a comforting voice down the hall and Madge suddenly realizes what it is that she has said to her friend. In the shadow of Katniss' possible death, Madge has come crawling on her belly for something as ridiculous as money. Suddenly feeling petty and small, Madge wilts into herself.

"Madge!"

Peeta turns the corner into the front hall, his entire body heavy with sweat from his day's worth of training. Haymitch staggers behind, watching the scene play out before him with wild, amused eyes.

"I'm sorry, Katniss. I didn't even-" Madge begins, a wash of most sincere apologies coming to her lips.

Haymitch cuts her off and the young girl from the Seam turns to leave the room. Her head is heavy with contradictions and she feels too lost to remain in the room with her fellow victors and her best friend's wife. It is too much. Far too much for someone so burdened. Voice booming even without its usual cloak of liquor, Haymitch walks over to pull Maysilee's niece into his arms. In another life, he wanted to know Madge, take care of her, but the Revolution comes first. And helping her after her father's death would have been a cancer to the uprising.

"Look, it's the traitor to the nation!"

Peeta scolds, but the older man isn't listening. Madge halfheartedly hugs her aunt's district partner, patting him on the back with a twitching smile still filled with guilt for how she spoke to Katniss.

"Haymitch, you can't say that-" Peeta trails off, warningly.

Holding her at arms' length, the oldest victor inspects the young girl. God, she looks so much like Maysilee.

"Why're you here?" He asks, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

He's heard of the wedding with all of its trappings and roastings and foolishness, but Haymitch couldn't bring himself to ask her of it directly. Madge squirms.

"I came because… I need some help…"

Tut. Tut. Tut. A long whistle. Peeta rolls his eyes.

"Can't help you if you're pregnant," Haymitch quips.

Of all the things to consider in the last few days, it never even crossed Madge's mind that someone would think she and Gale were married because of… because of… because of _that. _She flushes scarlet from her collar to her hairline, imploring Haymitch to understand.

"It's not like that!"

Heavy booted footsteps make their way down the wood flooring before Madge is unceremoniously shoved a basket full of food.

"Here."

There is no humor or lightness in Katniss' expression. She simply wants Madge out of her house and this seemed like the easiest way of doing business.

"It'll get you as far as this week," she says off of Madge's look.

A simmering quiet floods the four people as the young blonde readjusts her hands on the basket, holding onto it for dear life. A week. A week will be enough for a miracle to happen.

"Thank you, Katniss," Madge offers, her eyes tentative and her nod of goodbye full of meanings she couldn't quite identify herself.

Her thanks receives no reply. It is only when she is nearly out of the door that a final remark from Katniss clips her heart.

"Tell Gale I said hello."

* * *

When she walks through the door later that night, Gale is pacing the floor, his jacket slung over his shoulders and his boots laced all the way to the top, as if he is waiting to be called outside. The door creaks open, and Gale's wild eyes lock with hers for the briefest of moments before she turns into the kitchen. In that one swift encounter of gazes, she cannot see all that passes through him. Fear. Shock. Relief. Frustration. A sound pours from the deepest depths of his heart and he runs a hand through his hair as he pursues her through the house.

"Shit, Madge," he mumbles to himself, a little crazed.

He doesn't even seem to notice the bounty she's got in the basket in her arms, the great harvest from the Victor's pantry that she doles out into the cabinets above their sink.

"What?" She asks, genuinely confused.

She supposes he has a right to be angry that he came home from the Mines to an empty house and a bare kitchen. No supper after a long day at work. She knows her father used to get angry at that. But this sort of rage seems different, place somewhere else in his heart. Gale looks at her with eyes she's never seen before, narrow and passionately hostile.

"You had me… I was scared out of my mind," he snaps.

Madge shrugs. He doesn't need to know. After all, he keeps secrets from her. Why shouldn't she have a few of her own? Irritation begins to build inside her.

"I was out," she lets slip, offhandedly.

But Gale refuses to let it go. She feels whatever it is he's feeling radiate off of him, even as he slides his jacket from his shoulders and throws it on the nearest table with a measure of force she would have thought impossible after a twelve hour mining shift. Her annoyance edges farther up in her chest, an itch that stokes itself with every syllable he utters, every resounding step he makes across the cheap wood of their floors.

"You can't just run off like that," he commands.

He's playing at control now. He knows he has lost control, so he's desperately grasping at whatever he can get. Madge makes an attempt at talking some sense into him, at letting him know that she won't be talked to in this manner, but he simply ignores her as though she isn't even there.

"Gale-"

The itch in her throat strikes and becomes a spark of anger as she listens to him rail and rail against her. In truth, what perhaps Madge doesn't understand, is that it is the fear that made Gale this way this night. He walked in after his shift to a dark house with no signs of life anywhere. He waited ten minutes before walking down to his mother's house. She hadn't seen heads or tails of Madge since yesterday. Then, he went back to check their home again. Still no hint that Madge had been there. Every second, the deranged nightmares his head created got worse and worse. First, he was convinced she got lost. Then, it was that someone was playing a trick on her, taking her in the wrong direction. After that, it was that a Peacekeeper caught up with her and asked something she didn't know the right answer to. Then, it was Thread. It always goes back to Thread and the nightmare Gale has endured these last few nights where he imagines Thread tearing Madge from his side and dragging her into a column of flames with him. The fear in his chest exploded when she arrived, diffusing into a misplaced anger at his own foolish fear. His voice raises in tenor and volume.

"It isn't safe, Madge. You know that. How could you be so stupid?" He shouts thoughtlessly.

An honest moment follows from Madge. She cannot help her honesty, just as she cannot keep herself from shouting.

"I needed help! Okay? I _need_ help. I can't do this by myself. I'm trying, but I can't," she struggles to repeat her words, just so Gale has no misunderstandings about what it is that she means, "I just can't."

It is now that her husband chooses to recognize the Victor's symbol embroidered into the hamper liner of the basket Madge brought home. His voice sinks to a deadly low.

"What is that?" He asks, pointing as his brow furrows.

Madge only repeats now what she has said before, speech quiet and defeated.

"I needed help."

Gale cannot believe what he is hearing.

"You went to _Katniss _for help?"

Now. The confession. It explodes from her chest before she's even realized she wanted him to know all along. Yes, maybe she's failed him, but he's also the only person she could ever tell without hanging her head in shame. She slides down one of the walls, her legs unable to carry her weight anymore.

"No one would hire me, Gale. No one," she beats out, looking up at him with shattered eyes, "I went to every shop and every store and every place of business and not a single person would see me."

Her husband doesn't say anything. Just watches. Just lets her pain strike him with the force of Thread's whip. She tried to get a job today, spent eight hours on her feet, going from door to door, begging people to hire her. And no one would. It isn't the knowledge that they now have no chance of surviving off of his salary at the mines that knocks the air from his lungs. It is seeing how much she has beaten herself up trying to save him from knowing that she thinks she has failed him.

"They won't take the risk of hiring someone like me."

Gale isn't sure she knows that there are tears pouring onto her cheeks.

"They were people I used to know, who used to sit at my father's table and who saw all of my piano recitals and used to tell me what I fine young lady I was growing up to be. And they wouldn't even look me in the eye today. Wouldn't call me by name. I'm a political enemy. No one will take me."

It takes everything she can to choke out the last few words of her speech. She is so tired of breaking in front of Gale. She is so tired of needing to be fixed by him. First, the marriage, then the nightmares, now this. With one swipe of her hand across her face, she clears the tears and does her best to recompose herself into a semblance of the woman she knows she is.

"They acted like I was delivering a body bag. Like I was nothing but a problem they couldn't solve," she concludes, her eyes far away.

As if approaching a wounded animal, Gale crouches down slowly, every bone is his body creaking under the strain until he is settled into the space beside her.

"Hey. _Hey,_" he consoles, pulling her into his chest, "You aren't a problem."

They sit there for a while before Madge offers up something of her own. There is a tumult in her chest, an avalanche of emotions and conflicts and frustrations and passions cluttering the rooms of her heart and she cannot let him go before saying this.

"I wish I could save _you_," she mutters.

Gale remembers the first morning he saw the sunrise come up over the meadow. He was an eleven year old boy with his father, just before a hunting trip outside of the fences. The pair of them stopped for a moment, halting their motions just long enough to watching the night break into day. The sunrise and all of its magnificent colors took his breath away, this strong warrior heart of his halted. Such a surprising, yet small thing to be so amazed by. This interaction with Madge feels much the same as seeing the sunrise for the first time. It takes a while before he can formulate a response.

"You have," he says.

But then, he tacks on:

"You _are_."

Madge isn't sure she believes it, but the tears stop trickling down her cheeks all the same.

* * *

**So... Thoughts? I really tried to focus on Madge and her journey here since the rest of the chapters have been pretty Gale-centric. I hope you enjoyed the interactions with the other characters! Please, please, please, PLEASE let me know what you think in a review. ANY and ALL feedback is helpful, my friends! Thank you so much for reading and I can't wait to hear all of the things you have to say! :D**


	6. Chapter 6

_There was a bad moment toward the beginning of the Games that Madge knows she shouldn't have pressed. Katniss left and the world seemed to hesitate on its axis as far as Gale was concerned. Madge would see him in the halls of school, looking ghost-like and pale, a little lost and affected by the absence of the girl with the bow and braid. Every time she saw the shadow of the young man trudging away from her, a chill would run up and down her spine because for the first time in her life, Gale looked defeated. Beaten. Like he lost everything in this world worth hoping for. His eyes carried the resignation of one condemned to death and he didn't even bother hiding it. His eyes had bags weighing them down and his cheeks were pallid and lifeless. If, in the three nights since Katniss' absence, he had slept more than a handful of hours, it would have shocked the Mayor's daughter. If he had eaten a thing, she wouldn't have believed it. He looks like death himself walking through the District._

_In all honesty, it shouldn't have bothered her. What was Gale to her, really, except the handsome impossibility who brings her strawberries sometimes? In Madge Undersee's world, he was nothing and no one. But... From the moment she saw him after the Reaping, she saw something in him that frightened her beyond nightmares and Hunger Games. She saw the same look in his eyes that she sees in her mother's eyes. The Games, Madge thought, take more victims than the 23 yearly losers. No, there are victims back home, too. Madge's mother is one of them. And she would be damned if she let Gale bury himself under the Arena too._

_She offered her help and this is the thanks she gets? He would rather die than rely on Madge for even a moment? The feathers of Madge's pride ruffled at the idea, and her ego commanded her to do something she never imagined she would do. Gathering up what felt like half of her kitchen into several baskets, she defied Gale Hawthorne's obvious wish to be left alone, and took off for The Seam._

_When she arrived at the Hawthorne house, she knocked twice, though she had no intention of waiting for an answer. Hazelle was out with Posy delivering the laundry (Madge saw them in Town when she left her home), Gale's brothers were down the street, playing with some boys from Rory's year in school, and through the window, she saw Gale sitting on the floor, eyes vacant as he watched the commentators give their colorful analysis of this year's schoolroom massacre about to take place in the Arena. Madge's heart fluttered a step as she pushed her way in through the screen door. She was bold and brave and she would not let Gale lose himself. Cringing when the rusty hinges whistle at her entrance, the young woman squared her shoulders and headed for the kitchen without sparing a glance in Gale's direction. Behind her, she heard a rustle, then:_

_"What is this?" Gale asked._

_The commentators shifted to discussions of the tributes' stylists, so Gale thought it may be safe to rise to his feet for at least a moment, at least until they start talking about Katniss again. In general, he liked to listen to everything the experts said about her competition, the people she will have to beat, but there was a blonde haired intruder in his home. She laid an air of false lightness atop every movement she made, skirting into the kitchen as her curls bounce around her shoulders. With a few flicks of her wrist, the cabinets were open wide and her baskets were on the counter. Then, she began to unload._

_"I told you to find me when you needed help," she scolded._

_Gale folded his arms across his chest. Yes, he remembered her offering her help. But he also remembered never indicating that he had any interest in the least of taking her up on it. He was doing just fine. And why the hell was she bringing food into his house?_

_"What are you talking about?" He asked._

_She shrugged and pulled out some canned foods from her pantry before placing them in the first cabinet her hand touched. Her arms ached from the strain of holding so much weight, but she ignored their protests. There are worse complaints than having too much food to carry._

_"You need help," she said simply._

_Stalking to stand beside her, Gale began to pull the food from the shelves, tossing them carelessly into the baskets from which they came. His next words were interesting to Madge because he didn't contend that he didn't need help._

_"Not from you."_

_Playing with a light and sarcastic tone, Madge cocked her head to the side and closed the cabinet, holding her hand atop the nob so he would not continue to undo the work she did so far._

_"Really? Because you've been sitting in front of the television for three days and you haven't checked on the Everdeens once. You look like death warmed up and goodness knows when you last slept. Let me help you."_

_A look of the human flashed across Gale's face as Madge's voice became sharp, frantic. He seemed to be coming to his senses. His breathing was less mechanical, his eyes less dead. Madge adjusted herself, softening her tone as she reminded herself why she was there at all. Gale kept his eyes on Madge's small left hand, keeping the cabinet door locked with her deceiving strength._

_"I know you're worried. I'm terrified. But your fight is here. Katniss will take care of hers if you take care of yours."_

_She waited. And waited._

_Do you understand me?" She finished, breaking the syllables apart._

_Gale knew. He knew he hadn't been living up to his honor. He knew that there was life going on outside of Katniss in the Games, but... It felt like lying. To go on and endure while Katniss was so far away, caught in the land between life at its greatest and death at its most terrible, it felt wrong to Gale, even if he knew it was what Katniss wanted. To have someone like Madge, the perfect paper doll, come in and call him on his weakness is humiliating._

_"I'm not a child, Undersee," he barked._

_An eyebrow quirked. Madge looked him once, dangerously, from head to toe, before flatlining a response._

_"Then stop acting like one."_

_Gale reeled, and Madge returned to stocking his kitchen. Her next stop was the Everdeen home, but she would not leave this house until she knew Gale would be well. Or, at least, better than he was before. She gave him a meaningful look, completely ignoring the shock painted across his defined features._

_"I suggest that you go to bed now so that you can wake up early tomorrow for a hunt before school," Madge said._

_She was speaking braver than she actually felt. Gale did not remove his eyes from her face, even as she finished her task and slipped the wicker parcels back into her grasp. Feeling supremely uncomfortable at his intense gaze, Madge walked toward the door, shaking her head as she fought the tidal wave of nervousness in her stomach._

_"What are you looking at? Off to bed with you," she said, trying desperately to grasp on to whatever scrap of dignity she may have after her little display._

_Assessing her as she reached for the front door, watching as she seemed content to change him and then disappear, Gale forced words from his throat._

_"You think you're going to walk into my house and try to tell me-" He attempted in his most disapproving voice._

_"I don't **think** it, Gale, because I just did it. Bed. Hunt. School. Repeat," she said, ticking the activities off on her fingers, leaving no room for misunderstanding._

_She was halfway out of the door when he called to her again._

_"And what are you going to do?"_

_She froze, contemplated for a moment, then turned to face him once more._

_"We," she says, with distinction, "are going to survive."_

_And she left. He wanted so badly to hate her then. To shout and rail and slam doors and call her princess and wipe that look of strength off of her face with a few well-placed, harsh words. He wanted more than anything to hate her. But there was no room in his heart for it._

* * *

This reaping is different from the others. It is Madge's first time seeing the new Mayor, a hardened and mean looking man from District Two, cold as ice and emotionless as stone. God, does she miss her father. Her chest aches with the weight of it, dragging her down a little. Gale doesn't miss it, but not wanting to upset her further, especially when he could not save her from the embarrassment of her emotions in this crowd of people, he simply lets go of her hand and draws her closer to him, arm settling around her waist in the most intimate of gestures they have shared.

They are both shaking.

There is no hum of nerves among the assembled crowd. No heart draining fear. Just resignation. There are only three names in that Reaping Ball. Everyone knows how this game ends. Madge has never seen so many Peacekeepers in her life, and when the district erupts in the silent salute of goodbye, their guns click in anticipation.

But the crowd breaks peacefully. The Peacekeepers return to their posts and the people return to the terror that is their lives. Madge and Gale do not move until Katniss and Peeta have completely disappeared, at which point Gale starts for the meeting rooms where he will tell Katniss goodbye.

"C'mon, Madge," Gale says, holding her hand as he moves toward the Justice Building.

All at once, Madge is drowning in her fears and thoughts and doubts and not even Gale's reassuring grip can rest her troubled mind. Thread will be there. Thread will be in that building. Thread, the man who killed her parents. Thread, the man who wanted her tossed aside like a rag doll of fate. Thread, the man she would call her greatest enemy if she believed in such things.

"Please don't make me go in there," she begs in a quiet voice.

But Gale will not be moved. His steps are strong and sure against the aging cobblestones.

"This is our last chance to see her before the Games."

Madge does not miss that he says _her _instead of _them. _Even now, after all that has happened, it is Katniss. It has always been Katniss.

"Then, you go," she snaps, digging her heels into the ground and ripping her hands from his.

Her pulse pounds against her skin and she can't seem to escape the image of Thread's arms rising to strike her mother, Thread's voice calling out the orders to have them executed, Thread stepping through puddles of her parents' blood. And now that she has defied his justice by getting married, escaping his punishment… She cannot help but feel tortured by the prospect of seeing him again. Gale stops and looks at her, watching as she gulps down hard, struggling to find her breath again.

"I can't go in there and see Thread. I can't," she says with an air of finality.

She knows the risk of never seeing Katniss and Peeta again. It isn't something she's glazing over. But her fear grips its icy hand around her throat, choking her. Gale knows, though, that this isn't something he can face without Madge. Looking left and right over his shoulders, hoping that no one will see them, he leans in close, putting his hands on either of her shoulders.

"He's is done with you. You've done everything by the book. You're safe."

Safe. Safe. Madge isn't sure that is a word she believes in anymore. But, this time, when Gale takes her hand, she does not fight him.

* * *

A few minutes later, though, it is not Madge who is fighting. It is Gale.

"I can't see her?"

The faceless Peacekeepers have just informed him that, by order of the Capitol, no one will be allowed to see the tributed Victors. The families were informed days ago, but Gale is only being told now. Madge reaches for him, eyes flickering about like a hunted animal surrounded by her predators on either side.

"Come here-" She mutters.

He pushes her hand aside, refusing any distraction from his goal. Gale wants to see Katniss. He deserves to see Katniss. After everything this government has taken from him, the least they could do is let him see Katniss before she marches off to the Capitol.

"No, this is unfair," he says, his voice a biting shout.

Words echoing through the marble hallways, his chest heaves up and down and the Peacekeepers adjust their grips on their weapons. Uncaring or unthinking, Madge isn't entirely sure which, Gale takes a few steps closer to the soldier guarding the door, his chest almost touching the shining white uniform, dirtying it with the coal dust on his shirt. The guards are waiting for Gale to tire himself out, to run out of steam and become shaken with the fear that Madge is infected by, but they aren't going to wait very much longer.

"Gale," Madge mutters, her tone warning him off whatever it is he thinks he is about to do.

Just his head swivels to shout at her.

"I want to see Katniss!"

His wife's heart breaks for him, but she does not bend.

"Gale."

He has forgotten her. Turning back to the man at the door, he lowers his voice to a dangerous depths as his eyes darken. There is an undercurrent of brute force and strength rippling beneath the surface, so raw in its power that it terrifies Madge.

"Let me through."

The next moment happens as if in slow motion. Adjusting his hands on either end of his weapon, the Peacekeeper opposite Gale shoves forward, pushing him a few steps away in a silent, violent warning. The fingers on Gale's right hand twitch, and Madge watches the weight of injustice break his already bent shoulders, forcing his now clenched fist backward. He is halfway to a fighting stance when a pair of soft hands are suddenly on either side of his face, a slim body trapped between him and the white uniform guarding the door he is meant to be going through.

Cool hands. The sliver of a golden band. Her pulse. The way her eyes suddenly lock on to his. It is as if the veil of red hot rage is pierced and torn by her simple action of throwing herself between Gale and the Peacekeeper, tossing her body in the middle of a potentially treasonous act.

"Gale."

The room goes deadly silent. Everything stops. Gale's breath. The cocking of guns by the soldiers surrounding them. Against her back, Madge can feel the silver, sickly metal of the Peacekeeper's gun pressing into the thin fabric of her dress. If she was shaking before, it is nothing compared to now. Gale is suddenly reminded of the day he proposed to her, when it was his hands steady against her cheeks, promising that he would love her. Later, he will think that, perhaps this was Madge's way of returning the favor, in the best way she knew how. She speaks slowly, as if comforting a child in the middle of a fit.

"You have to stop. Let's go home. We'll see Katniss when this is all over."

Energy drains from Gale's body as he realizes what it is that he was about to do. In a moment of blind anger, he put both he and his wife in danger, the very thing he swore he wouldn't do. He dips his head in defeat, allowing Madge to release him. And then, from the sterility of the hallway, comes a pair of clapping hands.

"Oh, Mrs….." Thread smirks a gravestone smirk and feigns as if he was searching for the rest of her new title, "Hawthorne. What a heroic display."

Madge feels her blood run through ice. Every fear she had about this day, about coming into this building, has come true. All that is left now is for Thread to sign her death sentence and pull the trigger.

"Peacekeeper Thread," she says, bowing her head in a sign of deference.

She hates that she has to stand here and give him respect. She hates that Gale almost got himself killed and she hates that she has to talk to this monster of a man. His eyes are frozen and he only has enough life in them to torture Madge with.

"Your husband just threatened an extension of the Capitol. Do you realize that?"

Gulping down, hard, Madge reaches for Gale's grasp, unconsciously. She needs something to root her in reality.

"A threat that turned up empty, sir," she says with all of the strength she can muster.

"Let's hope that you are always here to hold Mr. Hawthorne's hand. We wouldn't want him to get lost, go missing, would we?"

A little rebellion plays in Madge's response. A little bravery. For the first time in her life, Madge looks Romulus Thread in the eye and speaks.

"Gale isn't going anywhere, sir. And neither am I."

Tension hangs in the room as everyone waits for the Head Peacekeeper to make his move. But, he doesn't reach for his handcuffs or his sentencing pen. Instead, he laughs, the laugh of a scientist dropping a rat in a trap, before waving his platoon of soldiers to follow behind as he walks toward his office.

"Not yet, anyway," he calls, leaving Madge and Gale completely alone in the marble hall.

Madge will never know why he let them go that day, but she knows that this isn't the end.

* * *

They do not speak. Not a breath of a word from the time the door slams behind Thread to the moment Madge sits in her chair for supper. She's halfway through the last of her stew, savoring the last few bites made from the remnants of the basket Katniss gave her. She doesn't have it in her tonight to think about where they will get food once they've finished their rations from the Victor's Village. Because of the fence, Gale's hunting has been restricted to whatever manages to cross District lines. A few muskrats and a bird or two, but those are brought to the Hob, sold to whomever has the money for them. Not that there is much money going around these days. And Madge worries about his brothers and sister now that Hazelle is the only one working in their house. There won't be enough money to feed them all. It is a truth that the young woman is prepared to face, but not tonight.

"Madge?"

When he finds the courage to speak, Gale's determined question rings in his wife's ears.

"Yes?"

He hesitates.

"What did Thread mean by you're not going anywhere yet?"

She sighs and lays her head in her hands.

"I don't know."

Gale cannot admit he is wrong. He promised her that she was safe and he is wrong. None of them are safe. Especially not Madge. So, he simply ignores the feeling in his chest that he should apologize, instead just stating the obvious fact which has been pounding the front of his mind all afternoon.

"He isn't done with you yet."

Her response is immediate.

"No. I don't think so, at least."

A thoughtful silence spreads between them. In the next room, the television hums, displaying the mandatory broadcast of the Reapings nationwide. When they cut to District Twelve, a funny look crosses Gale's eyes.

"You don't think…?"

Madge speaks through her teeth, her voice a caution that he will not answer.

"Whatever you are about to say, it had better be thought out carefully."

The warnings his wife gives out are usually ignored, and he does so again here. Gale is simply trying to fit the pieces together. He watched Katniss and Peeta and Haymitch train for months and never once did they tell him about Peeta volunteering in Haymitch's stead.

"Why would Peeta volunteer? Katniss could win again and then they could be together. But he volunteered, so he's going into it knowing that he and Katniss could never…"

When her father was alive, the entire house was bugged. Phone calls. Letters. Broadcasts. It was all recorded and redistributed for the safety committee in the Capitol to review. So Madge is unused to hearing things spoken so plainly. If she were being honest, it terrifies her.

"What are you trying to say?" She asks.

The theme music for the Quell plays through their house as the broadcast returns to the analysts.

"Do you think this is more than just a game?"

Madge shoves herself from the table, rising to her feet as she brushes a hand through her dirty hair.

"I don't want to talk about this."

Scooping up plates and cutlery in a mad dash, attempting to evade and escape this talk as best she can, Madge bites her lip so hard that she fears that her teeth may drive straight through the flesh.

"You haven't even considered-" Gale begins to ask, rising from the table to follow after her.

She's had enough. Dropping the dishes in the sink, she spins and looks at him, her eyes alight with passion she wasn't entirely sure she had.

"Thinking about things like that can get you killed."

Hope has weaseled its way into Gale's chest, though, and refuses to let go of him. Madge once heard one of her father's associates from The Capitol say that hope is a parasite. And she never quite understood what he meant until now.

"Things could change. Katniss could make things change," he implores her.

It is the final straw, and the weight of weeks and weeks of losing shreds of her life to this so-called rebellion finally erupts. Storming through the house, toward their bedroom in an attempt to get away from any prying ears that could hear through the front screen door, Madge finally lets her emotions pour from every fibre of her being. Gale follows her through their hall into the bedroom, watching her shout as she stands her ground against him.

"And how many have to die for this change? How many more like my parents? Are you offering yourself up next? Because if you keep talking like this, you will be the next person I lose. Do you think Thread is playing with us? He isn't. You thought a whipping was bad? He will kill you next time, make no mistake about that."

Gale hadn't realized… He didn't know… Before him stands a girl he thought indifferent, detached. But she's been burying herself to protect something deep inside her, something she displayed in that brief, momentary outburst. She's worried about him. She's worried about losing him. This understanding of her character shifts something tectonic within the young miner's soul. Quieting himself from his tone to his heart, Gale softens and attempts to approach her corner of the room.

"Madge, if things come down to it, you know I'll do the thing that keeps me alive."

His wife cannot help but scoff at that. Not marrying her would have kept him alive. Not going out of the fence line when he knew the Peacekeepers were looking for him would have kept him alive and away from Thread's whip all those months ago. Gale doesn't do the thing that will simply save him. He isn't capable of anything else.

"No. No, you'll do the brave thing. You always have," she says with a sigh, her energy gone after the day and her outburst.

She sinks onto the simple blanket atop their bed. He makes no move to sit beside her, just shoves his hands in his pockets and inclines his head playfully.

"I could say the same thing about you."

With a small happiness rising in her chest at changing the subject, Madge shakes her head. She isn't quite smiling yet, but Gale doesn't think it will be too long now.

"No. I went to the reigning Victor of The Hunger Games and begged for money. I obviously have a death wish," she says, rolling her eyes.

The miner that she married could not disagree more. He thinks of all the fear she had this morning, the fact that she begged him to keep her away from the Justice Building and yet she stood there on her own two feet and saved his stupid life from the very man she feared so much… It feels, to him, more courageous than anything he has ever done.

"You were brave today," he says, sitting down beside her, his side of the bed sinking beneath his weight.

She shakes her head. It isn't brave… It isn't brave at all. She just did what she had to do. Gale is all she has now. She can't lose him too.

"I was trying to keep you from getting yourself killed," she brushes it off.

Without her even acknowledging that it has happened, her head somehow lands on his shoulder and her eyes slide closed. Gale's arm reaches round to support her lower back, his hand resting just on her waist. They are both so tired. So drained from the day's events. But Gale is content to just rest here with her for a while. In their situation, in this uncomfortable scenario, this shouldn't be an option, this small comfort they are deriving from one another. Gale believes Madge resents him, fears him, is only with him to save her from the greater evils of the outside world. Madge believes Gale is doing his duty and nothing more. Finding respite in each other is not a common feature of such a union. But…. here they are. And neither has the heart or the thought to question it. They will take what they can get from the other, never asking more, fearing any less.

"Hey," he mutters after a long while.

Madge doesn't move from her place, merely speaking against his collar.

"Yes?"

Stomach itching at their conversation from earlier… Her defensive streak about the Rebellion, her insistence that she isn't brave… Gale rests his cheek against the top of her head in a rare show of raw, unadulterated tenderness.

"I need you to promise me you won't do anything stupid."

Madge scoffs, having no will to be sincere or serious. Instead, she makes a weak-willed joke.

"I married you, didn't I? I think I may have already broken that promise," she teases.

However, Gale cannot abide her quip. He doesn't crack a smile or breathe a laugh; he remains deadly serious.

"Promise me."

When his wife makes no effort to reply, Gale reminds her.

"You made me promise something on our wedding day," he says, recalling her demand that they never speak of love again, "You owe me one."

Like a boulder in a lake, her heart sinks, pulling her stomach and her smile out from under her. Just when she thought they were making progress of some kind. Just when she thought he wanted her to be safe because he didn't want her hurt, he goes and reminds her that this life will be little more than a series of business transactions. One for him, one for her. I owe you and fair trade. Nothing more. Nothing that her heart desperately wants.

"Yeah. Owe you," she whispers, the joy fading from her eyes in the harsh sting of retreating joy.

Gale asks her again.

"Promise me you won't do anything stupid."

And this time, she says it.

"I promise."

* * *

**Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, my followers! What did you all think of this chapter? I really hope you all enjoyed it. Please drop me a review and let me know that you thought? :) Can't wait to hear what you all have to say, my friends!**


	7. Chapter 7

_"But where are we going?" _

_Posy is dragging her feet, taking the time to enjoy all the visual pleasures of The Town. Flower gardens and pressure washed white walls. Blue skies unmarred by the thickest of coal dust generally found in the Seam. Vick and Rory walk behind, with Vick shaking his head._

_"You know Gale isn't going to like this," he offers. _

_Well, hang Gale, Madge wants to say, but she doesn't. Instead, she gives an excuse. _

_"You guys have let me stay in your house for the last few days. It's only fair," she says by way of defending herself. _

_The truth is, Madge has been eating dinner and staying at the Hawthornes until the power flickers off for the last six days. She knows that Hazelle's hospitality has depleted their food supply, and having Gale's siblings over for supper is the first thing that came to mind for some way to pay them back. There's more than enough food at her house, and maybe it won't be so bad to get them out of the Seam for a few hours, to bring them to a place where the air is clear and where the sun shines through big windows. _

_"Wow," the three siblings breathe out collective sighs as they look up at Madge's house._

_It's a beautiful house and Madge isn't ashamed to admit that anymore. And after spending a few days in their house, she knows just how lucky she is to be here in this place. It's a vast house on a hill, overlooking the entire district. There's a god-like presence to it, regal and removed all at once. She pats Posy on the back, pushing her forward. _

_"Let's just head inside."_

_Madge is particularly disappointed that she has to bring them in through the kitchen like some kind of secret, but she does it anyway. She won't submit Katniss' "cousins" to any humiliation by the visitors from The Capitol._ _When they walk in, Madge seats them at the table and listen as Caesar Flickerman narrates from the television mounted in the corner of the room. The televisions are always on here. _

_"What do you guys think? Beef or Chicken?" She asks, opening the refrigerator and lifting the foil to reveal the meals concealed underneath. _

_Rory's eyes are the size of saucers. _

_"We have a choice?"_

_Madge decides that they're going to have both, pulling the leftovers that the Capitol team will not touch with a ten foot pole ("It's the same food we ate yesterday!") and leaving them on the table. _

_"Dig in, guys," Madge says, sitting beside them, trying desperately to keep her smile on, even as she hears screams from the television screen._

_It's a good distraction for the kids. But distractions never last long. _

_"What are you doing?"_

_Somewhere in the middle of their peasants' feast, Gale has found his way into the kitchen through the back door, having heard from Hazelle herself where his siblings were. He's not angry, which confuses Madge immensely. Instead, he seems… genuinely confused. Madge nods to a chair across from her, picking up a chicken leg and shaving the meat from the bone to create the perfect sandwich. For good measure, she throws some lettuce and sunflower seeds between the bread as well. _

_"Having dinner. Want to join us?" She asks, as if she is completely oblivious to how Gale is receiving the image of his siblings eating at her table. _

_He's about to protest, knowing that it wouldn't make any difference. His siblings look so happy, so full and content. Rory beams up at him, a leaf of spinach caught in his teeth. _

_"C'mon, Gale! It's good!"_

_A moment of hesitation. Then, Gale pulls out a chair, somehow finding it beyond himself to care about the loud scraping of wood against tile as it goes. He doesn't serve himself; he splits his time between glowering at the television set and glowering at Madge. Finally, she whispers so only he will hear:_

_"They're leftovers. The guests won't eat it. It'll just go to waste and then you'll accuse me of being selfish."_

_He searches her expression for something, but doesn't find it. _

_"Fine. Fine."_

_"They're just children," Madge wants to say, defending her actions with his siblings, defending her choice to protect them for just a little while longer. _

_But she bites her tongue when Madge suddenly remembers what exactly children in this country are forced to do._

* * *

Madge used to think Gale obtuse and absurd when he would accuse her of 'not knowing what is it like' to live in the Seam. After all, her life wasn't _easy. _Not by any stretch of the imagination was her life a picnic like he always seemed to believe.

But now? Now, she knows what a fool she was to ever think her life in the house on the hill was even comparable to what he went through. Her biggest concerns back then, in what feels like another eternity, is that her mother was sick and her house was constantly overrun with strangers. Now, she deals with life and death. Now, she knows what it is like.

Starvation is ugly. That is what Madge has learned. Ugly and painful and something she never wants to witness in another human being as long as she should live. Lying on her side in the bed she shares with Gale, she listens to the silence of the house in the hour before Gale is due home from work, enjoying the stillness. She thinks of all that has happened, and knows that she doesn't regret it, even as the sharp stabbing of hunger pains rips through her stomach, irritating her migraine and forcing her eyes resolutely shut.

She's never had much of a head for numbers, but there was no denying it. There isn't enough money to go around. The night that Katniss left for the Games, she made sure that Gale was asleep before taking a look at their expenses. Food was the first priority and Madge knew that between what he made from the Mines at his reduced pay and her lack of a steady stream of income, there would not be enough for the both of them and for money to send back to Hazelle's half of the family, who would certainly need something to help them get along.

So, Madge made the easy choice. The choice that was so easy at the beginning and so hard in the middle and so unbearable now, but the choice that really isn't a choice for her at all.

She decided to stop eating all together.

Well, not all together. Budgeting a slice of bread or a bowl of broth every chance she got became the highlight of her days, but not enough to sustain her.

When Gale comes home that night, he finds Madge on their bed, laying on her side, her eyes closed with the effort it is taking merely to breathe right now. He can barely see her. Pale skin and thin figure blending in with the sheets, she's a grey woman, a ghost. He's noticed, of course, that she hasn't been herself these last few days. But it is only now, in the shade of evening coming through the window across from their bed, that he sees the signs. The translucent skin and the flushed cheeks and the sunken eyes and the _exhaustion. _Her eyes are closed, but her breathing isn't regular. He knows she isn't asleep. His stomach sinks as he realizes his failure. She's wasting away in front of him and he's accepted stupid excuses like, "I'm just not hungry," or "I ate at Hazelle's earlier."

"Madge?" He asks, quietly, tentatively.

His wife's eyes snap open and her body shoots up from her curled position on the bed to sitting. An embarrassed flush crosses her face. She must have lost track of time. Unless...unless something happened at the Mines?

"Oh, Gale. What time is it?"

He hears the fear in her voice, the unspeakable question that something else in their little world has fractured. Shaking his head, he tries to quiet her terror. Nothing is wrong, he wants to say, everyone but you is doing just fine.

"Past six."

Silence rattles between them with bone-shaking force.

"I haven't even started dinner. God. I'm so sorry," she pushes herself to the side of the bed, legs dangling as she flashes him what would otherwise be a dazzling smile, "Just give me a minute."

She's shaking. Why the Hell won't she stop _shaking? _Gale's voice doesn't threaten; she isn't intimidated. But she knows he isn't in the mood for joking. He isn't in the mood for levity.

"When was the last time you ate?" He asks, darkly.

Her knees are knocking, even as she tries to pull her full weight over her unsteady feet. The springs on the bed protest when she falls backward in defeat. She had only meant to lay down for a moment to set the world right again and stop the dizziness wracking her skull, but she laid down for too long and now she can't find her way back up. What she says isn't a lie, and her tone of voice leaves no room for arguing.

"This morning," she says, recalling the slice of dry toast and water she had for breakfast.

But Gale isn't satisfied, watching her collapse back to sitting on the bed. His stomach turns at the sight of it, his full stomach, something which she made sure he had when she packed him a lunch in his tin this morning before he left for work.

"A real meal, I mean."

She's so strong. So unbelievably strong to think herself so weak. A sarcastic laugh escapes her lips and she holds up her hands in surrender, indicating her whole, mistreated body.

"Why do you ask?"

He stopped by his mother's house before coming home this afternoon, just to check in. His siblings were smiling, happy, completely removed from the image he constructed in his mind of all of them starving and miserable. When he asked how they were making ends meet, Hazelle looked at him with confusion and explained their circumstances.

"My mom says you've been sending food over there."

Madge shakes her head. She should have known that somehow Gale would have found out, eventually. This was only meant to be a temporary fix until someone took pity and hired her. But with every passing day, that gets less and less likely and Madge remains obstinately opposed to taking food away from the mouths of Gale's siblings. Her newfound family.

"You're starting to show signs," Gale continues.

With as much energy as she can muster, Madge questions him.

"Signs?"

She must really be exhausted, Gale thinks to himself. In the District Twelve school, there are two lessons a year about starvation. One when winter begins and one just before students are released for summer. The Signs are physical markers that you can spot and easily tell when a person is succumbing to starvation. The teachers even taught students a handy song that would help them remember. A song that Gale will never forget and never bring himself to sing again as long as he would live.

"Of starvation. Honest to God, Madge, this wasn't what I meant when I said I would protect you."

"You need it more than I do. You need to work," Madge says, knowing all the while that trying to force her will upon him is like trying to mold a rock with her bare hands.

She doesn't have the energy for this argument, but Gale doesn't care. Instead, he looks her in the eye, forcing her to look up at him. There are a million things Gale could say to her. But there's a burning need in the base of his very being, a terror and a demand at the thought of losing her. He can't lose her. He can't lose her. He can't lose those beautiful eyes or those slender fingers weaving their way through his. He can't lose her tender smile or solid resolve or quick wit. He can't fall asleep without her and he can't wake up in the morning without pressing a kiss to her sleeping, oblivious forehead. She's a fixture in his life, as irreplaceable in his life as she would be in his if she would allow him to love her.

"Yeah, and I need you, okay? I need you to stay alive."

_I need you. _Those words ring in her head.

"Why?"

He can't answer that question. He made a promise to her about that. That organ in is chest throbs painfully as the words he wants to say are locked away in a box he's not sure she'll ever give him permission to open.

"Stop trying to be a hero," is his simple response.

Madge isn't a hero. She's a stupid girl with a big heart and an empty stomach.

"I'm not."

Gale smiles down at her, his eyes challenging, loving.

"Then let's eat something."

And just like that, he scoops her into his arms and carries her into the kitchen. They spend the next hour there, their two tired bodies side-by-side in front of the stove, cooking the last of the food in the pantry. And when they are done, they lay beside each other in bed, Madge's face glowing from the food, even if her stomach isn't quite full. They haven't decided on a solution. They haven't even discussed where they will get food for tomorrow. But, for now, they are content.

"What are we going to do?" Madge asks eventually, laying on her side to look up at Gale in the light of the moon peeking through their curtains.

"Make do, I guess," Gale shrugs, not knowing what else to say.

Like the food she ate only minutes ago, words catch in Madge's throat. She knows this isn't an option at all. Gale would never allow it. He'd rather them starve than allow her to add to his sins by bringing tesserae into their home.

"I could go tomorrow morning, take out some tesserae," Madge suggests, not even managing to look him in the eye.

There's no empty space in his words, no hesitation or room for argument. She flinches at the solid nature of his answer.

"Absolutely not."

Gale nestles his head further into the pillow, turning his head to look at his wife. There is a softness in Madge's features that tell him not to pursue the matter any further, not to condemn her for the offer. His next response is thoughtless, off the cuff. He doesn't look at her.

"Besides, we can't," he says, shaking his head, "Not until we have kids."

Now, Gale isn't a perfect man or a perfect gentleman. There have been times, probably more than are appropriate, where his body has tensed at the thought of being with Madge like husbands are supposed to be with their wives. Laying in bed beside her at night has been blissful and torturous in a million different ways. So, he quirks an eyebrow and takes a stomach-twitching leap of faith, smiling at her from under his eyelashes.

"Unless, of course, you'd like to try…"

He trails off, daring a look at her dumbfounded expression. But, she shifts, resting her head on her palm to get a better look at him. Delight sparks her eyes, and Gale revels in the life he sees there. She's more alive now than he can remember in a week, at least. The old Madge flickers beneath that breathless, intrigued smile she wears.

"Gale Hawthorne, are you trying to seduce me with promises of food?"

It's a flirtation. They're flirting. Gale never thought that he would count flirting with his wife as a great victory, but, sure enough, his chest alights with pride.

"Is it working?" He asks.

She pulls the covers farther up toward her neck, trying to hide the flush that's crawling over her body. She remembers flirting with Gale before Katniss came home. She remembers this familiar tingle in the back of her mind at the realization that maybe, just maybe, the smile on his face is genuine. So, she smiles, letting a few bricks from the walls around her heart crumble to the ground.

"Maybe a little."

* * *

**Blah! I'm sorry this chapter is so late! I'm not really fond of this chapter, but the next few chapters leading to the end of the story are much better, I promise! Anywho, please drop me a review and let me know what you think! I can't wait to hear what all of you have to say about this chapter! Happy New Year!**


	8. Chapter 8

There are shadows in District Twelve, Madge knows. Sometimes, she wonders if a place like District Four or District Seven, but she knows that it doesn't matter anyway. She doesn't live in Four or Seven. She lives in Twelve and can only deal with what she has.

The shadows are everywhere she looks. The shadow of Katniss and Peeta in The Games. They're going through Hell, having barely escaped the Mutts. They joined her parents in last night's nightmares.

There are shadows of The Mines. Gale trudges home every night to the sounds of his joints grating against one another and once he's home, he stays awake long enough to eat and watch Katniss suffer.

There's the big, long shadow of the Capitol. On ever corner, they'e hung flags bearing their emblem; one can't even walk down the street without a reminder of the stinging reality that no one belongs to themselves.

And then, there's the shadow of Thread hanging over Madge whether she's sleeping or awake. He haunts her nightmares and crosses her path almost daily as he runs his Peacekeepers on their rounds through the Seam. He never says anything, never throws insults or threats in her direction, simply nods his head in her direction with a look in his eyes that makes her think of Death. It chills her in a way that she isn't sure she can ever warm from.

But, she knows something that makes shadows more bearable. You can't have shadows without sunlight. And, in a district of shadows, she has managed to find some light. Like, her work, for example. A problem that was so real, so painfully tangible only a few days ago, is now a memory, replaced by something beautiful. When Madge finally came clean to Gale's mother about not having a job, things changed.

"We protect our own," Hazelle said with a resolute look on her face.

And, while Hazelle couldn't afford to take Madge on as an employee- no one has the money to send their laundry off anymore, not even those who live in The Town- the despondent, unmoving Mrs. Everdeen needed someone to help. Prim did as best she could running the infirmary, but the young girl could only do so much between her mother's inability to move and Prim's attachment to watching every second of The Games, someone needed to run errands and take care of the smaller injuries and aches. Over the week that she's worked with the Everdeen family, well, mostly Prim, considering that all Mrs. Everdeen could do was crawl up and down the stairs of her daughter's home in the Victor's Village in order to watch the Games and then retire when the power shut off in the evening, Madge has learned everything from proper bandaging techniques and how to administer headache medicine. She's careful about conducting business down to the letter of the law set out by the Capitol, particularly about how many pills she can dole out. She doesn't need any more trouble with Thread.

And coming home with money in her pocket, real, honest-to-goodness _money_, being able to give her husband something, even if she can't give him everything, is sunlight all in its own.

Then…There's Gale.

It's odd now, to think of how she saw him all that time ago, that other world ago. In her mind, he used to be this grey man. Grey clothes, grey words, grey expression, grey outlook. Colorful only when he was passionately arguing against her or defending something to her. Even when they were…Well, whatever it was that they were when Katniss left for the 74th Games, he always felt like a half-closed door to her. She could see the light in him peeking out, but she somehow knew that she wasn't invited in.

But now, when she looks at him, she can't believe that was something she ever thought him capable of. He isn't a particularly talkative husband, or even a particularly affectionate one. He's just colorful. Bright oranges and yellows in the early mornings when he presses a kiss to her forehead when he thinks she's still asleep. Passionate reds when he's messing about with his siblings in his mother's yard and when he turns down the volume on their Capitol-issued television set so Madge won't have to hear anyone's screams. Deep blues when he hears her whisper, "you'll stay safe, won't you?" as he leaves for work and rich purples when she sighs, "I'll see you when the morning comes," as she slips into a peaceful, nighttime dream. Pitch black when he has to wake her from a nightmare. Pure white when she reaches to him for comfort.

He was never a grey man. She isn't sure what's caused the change in him. Perhaps it was there all along, perhaps she just was too blind to see him for who he really is. Or, perhaps, something changed. Perhaps something or someone injected that color into his life. Madge isn't sure she'll ever know the answer to that question.

All she knows is that there are some days, some moments, that come all too frequently now, where she desperately wishes she hadn't made him promise. She wishes he would look her in the eye and say 'I love you.' And she wishes she had the heart to say it back.

* * *

They're walking back to their house in the dark, Madge a little tipsy and Gale a little amused from whatever it is that Thom slipped into their drinks at their Saturday night supper, when it occurs to Madge that tomorrow is Sunday. Tomorrow is the day when she and her husband can do whatever it is they like. Sleeping off the hangover that is certainly inevitable at this point, for starters, but beyond that, they have an entire day and half the night to do anything that they want. The Games have been weighing on everyone lately, but the bubbles in her veins from the booze make her feel light as a feather. Looping her hand through Gale's, she squeezes him and smiles.

"Why don't we stay in bed tomorrow?"

The flirting is more commonplace now, even if her touch still shocks him every time she offers it. He wonders if it will always be this way, that feeling of belonging that rolls over him every time she extends herself to him, but brushes it off before his mind can roll into more dangerous and less gentlemanly territory. Though, while his mind may be trying to maintain a scrap of dignity, his tongue does not follow suit:

"You know, you don't have to play coy with me. After all, we are married," he teases.

Madge's stomach seizes up at the suggestion. Of course, Thom and Bristel hounded them with questions at dinner, questions that neither Gale nor Madge were keen or able to answer, but to hear the evermore common suggestion from Gale still makes her gulp. She shakes her head, knowing that if Gale ever asked her seriously, she wouldn't hesitate to say yes.

"No, I mean, let's just be with each other. We've been working and exhausted and we could use a break."

Their lives have been dictated by the television and mine schedules. Madge works herself to the bone tending to the sick of District Twelve and Gale breaks himself deep in the ground. Then, when all is said and done, they collapse on their tiny couch to watch Katniss and Peeta get tortured inside a glass dome until it is time for them to retire to nightmare-filled sleep. A day without the entanglements from the outside world may just be what they need.

"No Games?" Gale asks.

If Madge could, she would take Gale's mining axe to that damn television screen, but somehow she thinks that she's in enough trouble with Thread. Instead, she gives a noncommittal shrug of her shoulders and steps into the next puddle of streetlight, not knowing how much longer the electricity will last tonight. It's already stayed on much longer than she expected.

"Not unless you want to," she says.

Even the best Capitol betting experts would not have guessed what Gale would say next. Madge wouldn't have either, even after having lived with the man as long as she has. Very solemn, very stoic, very reverent, he gazes off toward the street where Katniss used to live in the Seam, wondering if what he is about to say makes him a terrible human being.

"I don't."

He just can't watch her suffer any more. He can't. There is only so much torture one man can watch before he reaches his breaking point, and Gale is on the threshold of just that place. If he had it in him to watch over her like a guardian angel, like there was something he could actually do to end her suffering, then he would never leave his television screen. But a day away might do him good. She's going to live. Abernathy and Mellark will make sure of it, won't they?

"I understand."

When she says that, he believes her.

They're continuing on to their house, watching in silence as the mist of the night carries coal dust up toward the ghostly mountains in the distance when they come upon their block and hear sound. Music, Gale recognizes. Music on one of those recorded players people used to buy at The Hob. The walls in District Twelve are thin, Capitol-made, and cheap, so the music comes in handy when those living on the blocks for newly-married couples know they will be making sounds they don't want the neighbors to be privy to. Surely, Madge knows this, and surely Madge knows what she is about to say is sordid, but she can't help it. The tune is lovely and she sings along to the song playing only to cover up the noises of their neighbor's lovemaking. Gale hears the music and is instantly a little jealous. He's a man, after all, and he sleeps in the same bed as the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. After a while, one begins to get twitchy and envious of couples holding hands, much less having rowdy nighttime sessions in their marriage bed. Madge beams up at him, completely unaware or uncaring of his discomfort, releasing her hold on him to take a few steps closer to the source of the music.

"Oh, I love this song," she exclaims.

Her hands clasp over her chest and she sways as the music entrances her. She used to be able to play this song on the piano, and she vaguely remembers the muscle memory required to play it. Her fingers begin to move accordingly through the air, as if the keys of the piano were scattered across the night sky. This probably wouldn't be happening if she hadn't been drinking, which she knows, but doesn't care about. Gale watches her, but his amusement loses under his severity. He doesn't want her out in the middle of the street, dancing to music when she already has a target on her back.

"No, you don't," he scolds, grabbing her hands and attempting to pull her along.

But his body is sore and weak from its time doing heavy physical labor and Madge is surprisingly strong. He grabs her hands, yes, but it is her who wins out in the long run, using his momentum to pull his body into hers.

"C'mon! It's fun," she says.

"It doesn't look fun to me," he responds, trying his half-hearted best to pull away.

She's doing some mountain dance that he's sure they tried to teach him at school one time or another, some traditional old thing with three simple steps put to slow, melodious songs. Attempting to pull Gale along, she laughs, her eyes reflecting in the light of the street lamps. Gale is torn, caught somewhere between wanting desperately to bring her into the house and hide her in there forever and wanting to sit here and dance with his wife.

"Just try it!"

The music is an intoxication all its own. Dizzying and startling, disarming and lovable, the slow dragging tune eventually pulls Gale along with it. Accepting her open arms, allowing her to wrap them around his torso so he can mirror her for a bear hug, side-to-side sway of a dance, Gale is reminded of their wedding day when he trapped her hand on his cheek and said a few words that he knows scared her off. He repeats them now, maybe a test to see if she'll run, if she'll seize up and defend herself against him as she did all that time ago.

"I could get used to this," he mutters, laying his head against her hair as they step left and right in time with the music.

It is just then that the power decides to snap, suddenly and rudely, as if realizing that it had been on for too long, giving them too much time to come together. Gale doesn't get an answer to his challenge, to the bait he lays out before her. But, engulfed in darkness, Madge tenses against him, every muscle reacting as the music wheezes to a halt and every light evacuates her eyeline. And he finds some pleasure in the fact that her first instinct is to cling to him, just as his first instinct is to cling to her.

"It's alright," Gale says, holding her a little closer.

He knows they should move. Get into the house and light the few candles that they have so they can eventually slide into bed. But neither of them seem very keen on moving at all. Madge is the first one to speak, so hesitant and nervous that the man in her arms feels her heart beat quicken against his chest in anticipation of what is to come. Maybe now isn't the best time to ask this question, but Madge isn't sure when she'll ever get the opportunity again.

"Gale?" She asks.

"Hm."

The sound of crickets. Of wind through tall grass. Then:

"Why did you save me?"

He can't answer that without lying a little. Not without breaking the rule. The answer that he decides upon isn't a lie. It just isn't the whole truth, but he can't talk about love. It is the only real promise he knows he can keep with her. The darkness cloaks them, and Gale is happy that no one can see him like this.

"I stayed in the children's home once. After my dad died. I couldn't let you go there."

It's on the tip of their tongues. Each of them want to ask why the other left. Why Madge disappeared after the Games. Why Gale said the things he did. The ocean of misunderstanding between them is vast and neither has the energy to swim across it today. It is Gale's turn to take courage and ask a question that has been on his mind since Madge made a joke at dinner about marrying Thom. He knows she wasn't serious about marrying his friend, but Gale can't help but ask, letting some harsh, uncalled for jealousy and insecurity seep into his tone.

"Did you want someone else?"

Gathering a bit of bravery she wasn't sure she had, Madge smiles against his chest and speaks loud enough so she knows he can hear.

"I don't think there has ever been anyone but you, Gale Hawthorne."

* * *

_He's been quiet all night, something she's begun to accept as a part of the character that is her Game time friend. The Games are almost over. Katniss and Peeta won yesterday, and now they're sitting together in silence. Madge watches Gale get lost in the future, his eyes travel millions of miles and hours away from her. _

_"Are we ever going to be free?" She asks._

_It's a random, unprompted question and Gale wonders what brought it about. But, it has the desired effect, dragging Gale back from the life he might have had with Katniss back to the real world. _

_"What do you mean?" _

_With a scoff, she rolls her head toward him, shooting a disparaging look in his direction. _

_"Well, we definitely aren't free under the Capitol," Madge retorts, obviously._

_"I know that," he snaps._

_He of all people knows that. He lost his father, his childhood and his best friend to this industry of inequality that is their government. She doesn't have to remind him that they are slaves to the system. _

_"So, do you think we ever will be?" She asks, __hesitantly.  
_

_"I hope so, Madge. I really hope so."_

* * *

**Here we go! Only a few more chapters to go. We're nearing the end of Katniss' games and the end of my winter break, so expect this story to be finished and posted in its completion by next Friday (the 24th). Also I want to shout out to finnickodone on tumblr who made me an incredible gifset for this story! Go check it out when you get a chance. **** I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter. Please let me know what you thought and felt about it! I'd love to get feedback and predictions for what you think will happen over the rest of the story! :)**


	9. Chapter 9

_They know that this is highly illegal for them to be doing. The Victor's Village is strictly off-limits, something that has been drilled into them from childhood, when their teachers took them on their yearly trips to the Mines by way of Victor's Row. At the sight of the village, all of the children broke their tightly formed line and pressed themselves to the wrought iron fence, pushing themselves to gasp and and sigh at the enclosed street of lonely, ghostly houses. They whisper about the crazy Haymitch Abernathy and how they all heard that Victors get five square meals a day. Back then, Gale and Madge didn't believe it, but now they're standing on the other side of that very same fence, skirting through the desolate main road within, heading toward the giant house beside Haymitch's equally grand one. _

_"We shouldn't be here," Gale says, looking over his shoulder._

_He isn't a stickler for the rules by any stretch of the imagination, but Gale never imagined that Madge would drag him here of all places._

_"If they didn't want us to sneak in, they wouldn't have left a hole in the fence, right?" Madge asks, quirking a challenging eyebrow in his direction._

_Maybe this isn't the best idea she's ever had, but she won't admit to that now, not when she knows that Gale's scolding is only half-hearted. Katniss is coming home tomorrow. Peeta is coming home tomorrow. There isn't time to worry about the formalities of 'legal' and 'illegal' or 'good ideas' and 'bad ideas.' Madge wants to see the house her friends will be living in, and Gale couldn't very well let her go on this ridiculous quest on her own. _

_Madge thinks of all the afternoons she's spent waiting for him to return from beyond them outer fences of District Twelve and knows that he doesn't give a whit about the fences. He was always adamant that she never trail behind when he went to hunt, so she always waited out in the green grass inside the fence to help him carry his spoils to the Hob. He always said he didn't want her with him during his hunt because the woods were the only place he could be alone, but Madge had the suspicion that he kept her away to keep her safe. _

_"Let's just go and get this over with," Gale sighs._

_They walk forward through the village, their sensible boots crouching against the early morning stillness of the ground, until finally they reach it. Katniss' house. Massive and stunning, it stands like a proud Victor itself. A fair reward for being one of the last two standing. The sight of the building fills both Gale and Madge with a flurry of emotions, fear and joy both._

_"It's a beautiful house," Madge finally says, breaking the hush between them. _

_It isn't a compliment. It is a resignation. A realization of all that their friend has had to trade and give up to have this house._

_"Yeah," Gale agrees, his voice echoing her forbearance, "It's nice."_

_Those few words convey the things that they'll never be able to admit out loud. When they look at this mansion, they see that Katniss has survived. She won. It's pride and relief and grace and redemption and (at last) a semblance of peace. But when they look at this house, they see something else, too. They see that nothing will ever be the same. It's terror and uncertainty and apprehension and the sinking reality that this is the last day of the fresh normality that they've become so accustomed to since Madge cornered Gale all those days ago after the Bloodbath. _

_Knowing she cannot dwell on it, Madge grabs Gale's hand and pulls him along toward the line of windows at the ground level. The storm-proof glass is just high enough to where they can be peered through. _

_"C'mon," she says, "Let's go explore."_

_And they do. They sneak around and steal glances into the opulent entertaining hall and the absurdly large dining room. The kitchen is the size of Gale's entire house. The pantry bulges with provisions that could feed the entire Seam for a week, at least. _

_"It's a scam, isn't it?" Gale asks, bitter and callous._

_Madge is halfway through counting how many different types of fruit are sitting in the bowl on the kitchen counter through the window when he throws that question at her. His arms are folded across his chest and he's desperately trying not to sound as angry as he actually is._

_"What do you mean?" _

_"They tell us that you get everything when you win, but she doesn't really get anything, does she? They convince us all that we're safe, that the Capitol protects us, but you see what they did to her. We're safe right now, but they can take it away from us whenever they want to, can't they?"_

_The Village is bugged and she knows it. She only hopes they haven't gotten around to wiring Katniss' house. _

_"You can't think like that, Gale," she says, attempting desperately to backpedal._

_If anyone is listening right now, she hopes her words may well keep Gale from being executed on the grounds of treason. He's blasphemed the government. On any other ears but Madge's, he's just spoken death._

_"Yeah, well, I do," he snaps, "They can change things in an instant."_

_Hoping on hope that she is doing more good than harm, Madge tells a truth that has been lurking in her heart for days now. _

_"I wish things could stay like this forever."_

_But Gale knows that nothing lasts forever. This house that Madge so desperately wanted to see is proof of that. There, standing in the shadow of the newest house in the Victor's Village, Gale realizes the only truth afforded to him in this broken world. Tomorrow, Katniss will come home. Everything will change. Come sunrise, nothing will be the same._

* * *

They wake the same way that they went to sleep. Gale a few minutes before her, awake just long enough to watch the last of the night stars dance in her blonde hair. They wanted to sleep late today, to enjoy their day off, but his body can't seem to will itself to sleep any longer than it already has. Mine work starts at sunrise, six days a week, so his body is accustomed to waking up when the night sky is at its darkest. He takes full advantage of the view before him, watching her chess rise and fall beneath the blanket given to them as a wedding present from Hazelle. He doesn't reach out to touch his wife or even breathe too heavily against her skin. He doesn't want to wake her and interrupt his steady access to her beautiful face. While he does this, he thinks of everything that has happened, of all the times she's saved him, trusted him. He fell in love with her like this, he thinks. With her eyes closed and his wide open. We don't get to choose the people we love, Gale thinks, but even so, if it all came down to it, he would choose her anyway.

"Y'know, it's rude to stare," Madge says through barely parted lips, not even opening her eyes.

Gale smiles unashamedly, constantly astonished by the woman in his bed.

"I wasn't staring," Gale defends himself.

Raising an eyebrow, Madge remains in her sleep-like position, looking just as she did ten minutes ago when she was deep in dreamland.

"Oh?" She asks.

Gale shrugs; Madge can feel the movement of his shoulders shake the mattress they sleep on. Too tired to open her eyes, the young woman feels her lips quirk upward.

"Just admiring the view," Gale breezes effortlessly.

"Flatterer," Madge whispers, sinking even further into their sheets with a contented sigh and knowing she would roll her eyes if they were open.

After last night, after the dance and the darkness, Gale knows he is allowed to have a little fun with his wife. His stomach twitches as he thinks of using that same music they heard last night for its intended purpose, rather than dancing.

"Why would I need to flatter you? You're already in my bed," he says, with a smug air that makes Madge bite her lip to keep from laughing.

She decides to play along, perhaps teasing a little more than is safe for two people who haven't even kissed yet. A husband and wife who haven't even kissed yet.

"If you keep bringing _it_ up," she begins, unable or unwilling to actually say _lovemaking_ or _sex_, "I may just have to take you up on it one of these days."

Scoffing, Gale rolls his eyes and shifts from his side to his back, looking up at the ceiling with a smirk. He doesn't mean a thing he says, he isn't entirely bitter about what's gone on between them, or better yet, what hasn't gone on between them, in this bedroom. But it doesn't hurt to play with her a little bit. After the sterility they shared those first few, awkward days of their marriage, he welcomes this change in attitude, this ability to talk to her like two people should.

"I won't hold my breath."

Finally, Madge's eyes snap open, and she sits up in bed with a scandalized laughing gasp which peels from her chest. Expression alight with something akin to delight and offense, she looks at down at her husband, who looks as pleased with himself as the cat who ate the canary. Madge is blushing and Gale is just happy that she's acting like herself again. After her parents' deaths and the marriage and the starvation scare, she hadn't been much like the woman he knew. Now, there's life in her. Gale isn't sure if it's him or time or some combination of the two that caused the change in her, but he'll accept it either way.

"Gale!"

She even has the audacity to lightly punch his shoulder in protest of his comment. She isn't really hurt to hear him say something about their lack of intimacy; she plays along because she's forgotten how good it feels to actually laugh. When they come down from their fits of laughter, Madge folds her legs up under her so she can face Gale straight on, and the miner's expression becomes pensive and distant. Pulling himself up from under the sheets, Gale mirrors her position.

"You know we're going to have to get up sometime, don't you?" He asks.

Yes. But, oh, how she wishes they didn't have to. Thoughtlessly, weakly, she protests his question, though she sort of knew all along that this was coming. Their friend is fighting to the death in a Game fixed by the people who so desperately want to kill her. They have to watch. If something happened to Katniss and they missed it, they would never forgive themselves and they both know it.

"But I thought we were going to stay in bed today."

Gale levels his gaze at her.

"We can't _not_ watch Katniss."

She nods before resting her head atop her knees. Outside their windows, the darkness is still draped like velvet over the entire District, and Madge suddenly wishes that they were still asleep. It's Sunday. Everyone is supposed to sleep in on a Sunday, but here she and Gale are, sitting up in bed, talking about things far too serious for the early hour.

"You're right," she whispers with resignation and the knife of certain fate twisting in her stomach as she thinks of where the television screens left off last night.

Gale is always right, Madge thinks to herself. They sit there for a while longer, Madge with her head on her knees and Gale sitting back, watching her eyes droop with the exhaustion coursing through her body, knowing all the while that it's a residual symptom of her near-death starvation scare.

"You aren't moving," he says after a long while.

Her eyes are closed again.

"Neither are you," she responds without a moment of hesitation.

He decides to tell the truth. The truth is surprisingly easy and sweet as it rolls off his tongue, though his heart clenches uncomfortably at the sound of the words as they hit the air.

"I don't want to."

Her blank, sleepy expression turns to a closed-eyed smile.

"Me either."

The sounds of nighttime pour through their window like the darkness, and Madge feels a pair of well-worked hands reach for her own as a tentative voice speaks in a voice hardly louder than a whisper.

"Madge?" He asks.

She's enjoying the feeling of his hand in her own. It's a sweet, simple feeling that leaves her warm and cold all at once. Content with what she has and craving so much more. She bites her lip.

"Hm?"

Gale is hesitant. But he's halfway to asking the question when he realizes that this may be a bad idea, and by that time, it's far too late to turn back from this path.

"What changed?"

Madge's eyes open, and confusion flashes across her face.

"What?"

Thinking of all that has happened makes the young man sit up a little straighter. When they started this... thing... she was quiet and reserved, a million people removed from who he thought she was. But here she is now, up with him in bed, joking about sex and sleep and listening to the symphony of crickets playing the underscore of that uncertain time just before sunrise.

"You warmed up to me," he says, summing up their time as husband and wife, "What changed?"

Gale looks up at her with such honest, raw, emotion, such broken curiosity and tenderness, that Madge doesn't think she can be entirely held responsible for what happened next. Shifting her body so she is directly in front of him, Madge reaches out her hands, letting one fall to either side of his face. She doesn't want to answer his question. She wants to do _this. _

"What're you-" Gale begins, uncertain of what she's playing at.

But by the time he's gotten those words out, Madge has pulled him into her, meeting his lips halfway for their first kiss. It takes Gale a fraction of a moment to realize what is happening before he eagerly responds. It starts out gentle, hesitant. The kiss is more question than answer, Madge's lips brushing against his for permission before Gale invites her in. His hands trail down her body, resting on her hips before dragging her ever closer to his body. The question stops there, and the kiss turns into a command, a statement, a shout of things lost and forgotten and newly found and rediscovered. Madge smiles against his lips, a tease that he can't ignore as he deepens the kiss, gripping her hips as he lays her back down on the bed.

This movement, though, brings Madge back down to reality. Gale hovering atop her, hands painfully low on her body covered in little more than a white nightgown, Madge suddenly realizes the position, and gently pulls away, laying her head back against their comforter. They're both struggling for breath, and Gale goes to lay beside her. They're both smiling now.

"That was-," he breathes, struggling to find a word to describe what just happened..._Amazing. Beautiful. Worth the wait. Long overdue. Not enough. Perfect? _Before finally, stupidly, deciding on, "That was not an answer."

He turns his head to look in her direction, his hand closest to hers reaching out to interlace their fingers when what he really wants is another kiss. What Madge wants to say doesn't come out. If she were in a perfect world, she would say, _But it's as close to an 'I love you' as I'll ever manage to get. _But she doesn't.

"I know," she smirks, shrugging against their mattress, "But I wanted to do that anyway."

Gale is just about to go in for the very thing his lips are tingling for when three resounding knocks fill their house. _Bang. Bang. Bang. _A fist makes contact with their front door and Gale groans as he rolls on his back once more. Madge goes to swing her legs over the edge of the bed, but Gale reaches for her. Gale wonders who the Hell is coming to their door this early in the morning on a _Sunday _of all days, but his main concern is Madge and her lips, which are now plump and red and thoroughly enticing.

"Don't answer that," he commands.

With a laugh, Madge shakes him off and pulls herself to her feet. Reaching for the robe laid out beside their bed, she slips her arms into it, letting the thin fabric- one of the only impractical things she packed when she left her father's house to marry Gale- rubs against her fiery skin.

"I can't ignore the door," she scoffs, tying the cord around her waist.

Throwing an arm across his eyes, Gale whines like a child. He only just got to kiss his wife, and now someone is trying to take her away from him? For shame, he thinks to himself with a laugh, knowing all the while that the distraction can only last a few minutes, at which time she'll return to his arms and their bed.

"Why not?" He moans.

Sensible as always, Madge slides her ring off and lays it on the bedside table, knowing all the time that she'll have to wash her hands in a moment, and she always gets nervous leaving something so personal and intimate lying so close to an open drain. Running a hand through her hair, she considers slipping into sensible clothes as well, but ultimately decides that she will get whoever is at the door out of the chilly morning wind before doing anything further with her appearance.

"It may be someone from work. Prim said she might send the Farrah children over here. They're afraid that one of their little boys might have the sneezes and wanted to get them all checked out," Madge says, skirting out of their bedroom door.

Unable to help himself, Gale smirks, calling after her with a self-satisifed ring to his voice.

"Well, hurry up. I have more _questions_ that need _answering," _he says, unable to think about anything

She's still giggling when her hand lands on the door handle, her heart light and fizzy with what she's just been through with Gale. There is no controlling her joy, no controlling the love in her chest. No controlling it, that is, until the door actually opens. Abruptly, with that one action of opening a door, her entire world stops. Her life changes.

Thread.

It's Thread.

The man pounding at their door is Romulus Thread.

On the other side of the door stands Romulus Thread in all of his terrifying glory.

What?

_What?_

Madge can't breathe. She can't think. Her eyes lose their focus and she feels every drop of energy fall from her body, shut off suddenly like the power in District Twelve at night. Her body works on autopilot. Breathe in. Breathe out. Bow your head. Make no eye contact. Breathe in. Breathe out. Gulp back the bile in your throat. Don't let Gale think there's anything wrong.

Madge immediately draws her robe up tighter around herself, as if it could save her from what is to come. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Madge instantly turns sombre and unsure. She takes a step out onto the porch, able to see the man by the glittering bits of sunshine peeking through the harsh darkness around them. She hopes he doesn't hear the terror that she feels. In the back of her mind, she hears those words once muttered by her husband.

_I don't think Thread is finished with you._

He isn't. He isn't finished with her. And, it would seem, The Capitol isn't done with the only Undersee child.

"Oh. Um, good morning, Peacekeeper Thread," she says, quietly and reverently, trying as hard as she can to raise no red flags to the man inside her home. _Gale_, she implores in the back of her mind as if she could somehow send a message to him, _do not come outside. Please don't come outside._

The man doesn't care for her formalities.

"Is your husband home, Mrs. Hawthorne?" The man asks, his hard, unfeeling eyes giving Madge an ever more difficult time swallowing that bile down.

Madge isn't sure why she does it, but she closes the door behind her, leaving her alone with the Peacekeeper out on the porch. Keeping Gale safe.

"No, sir. He's not."

Everything in her screams that she must lie. Don't let him know Gale is home. It's instinct. Thread assesses her, but doesn't make any movement to call her on the colossal lie she's just told. Her body and the closed door behind her gives all the reassurance he needs. He can take her. No one is coming to save Mrs. Hawthorne now. She should have seen this coming.

"Mrs. Hawthorne. I'm going to need you to come with me."

She doesn't ask what she's done wrong. She doesn't fight. She doesn't ask what her crime is.

It doesn't matter. It _doesn't _matter. _It doesn't matter._

It didn't matter for her parents and it won't matter for her. Katniss is a liability to The Capitol. And every ember that she's ignited must be stomped out into nothing. Madge think about what happened last night on television before the feed was suddenly cut due to 'technical difficulties' in the Arena. Katniss figured out how the arena's traps are designed. She's more dangerous a player now than she ever was before, and The Capitol can't have any more of her followers out where they can do damage. And Thread wants to handle Madge personally.

They are going to take Madge whether they have to make up some charge or not. Madge knows it, but she'll be damned if she lets them take Gale away too.

In the light of the sunrise, which barely peeks over the horizon, the handcuffs hanging from Thread's fingers glimmer like the blade of a swinging axe. Wordlessly, with no defiance in her eyes, just the soft brimming of tears and acceptance, the young wife presents her wrists and lets the shimmering iron clamp down hard. She does not give him the satisfaction of whimpering when the handcuffs cut into her skin hard enough to draw blood. And she does not look back at the house, though every fiber of her being is crying out for Gale. But she doesn't scream or cry for him. She doesn't give Thread any reason to suspect that he can take another captive. Thread can't have Gale too. Madge won't let him.

So, Madge leaves silently, marching down the grim road by the head Peacekeeper, and she wonders if this is what her father felt when he was led to his death.

_Defeat. _Pure and utter defeat.

Madge will never know the answer to that question. She'll never know how her father felt on the death march that feels so close to the one she is on. All she knows is this:

Romulus Thread is taking her. And she won't ever be coming back.

* * *

**Thank you for reading. Can't wait to hear your reactions.**


	10. Chapter 10

Gale hadn't even realized that he'd fallen asleep, or that he was even _tired _enough to fall back asleep. His mother used to say he could sleep anywhere during anything, but he never believed her until now. One moment, he was laying on his back, head at the foot of the bed and feet at the head, waiting for Madge to come back as his eyes began to feel leaden, and the next moment he's woken up with the full light of midmorning sun blaring down full force in through the windows. Groaning, reaching a hand up to rub out a kink in the muscles of his neck, Gale groggily opens his eyes. The bed is empty. Cold.

"Madge?" He asks, looking around.

She isn't in the room, but he isn't concerned. After all, he vaguely remembers Madge saying something about sick children and Prim. Of course, he wasn't entirely paying attention, considering that his mind was wrapped in thoughts of _other _pursuits, but all the same, he's sure she's just busy with snot-nosed kids and their anxious parents. Gale takes his time getting out of bed, rolling his neck and relaxing his body after the awkward position he slept in. He slips on his Sunday clothes, the only set of fabric he owns that doesn't have the District Twelve mining symbol embroidered on the chest and back. On mornings like this, he'd generally be out in the woods by now. But with the fence electrified and the scars on his back, Gale knows that isn't in the cards anymore. Suddenly, he curses himself for not having taken Madge out there while he still had the chance. There isn't anywhere in District Twelve quite like the woods. Out there, at least, you can pretend you're free. The sky and the ground and the trees grow and do and look as they like out there, but in here, there's no chance of that. One day, Gale promises himself as he buckles his belt, when this is all over, he'll find a way to take her out into the woods. One day. Out of the corner of his eye, Gale sees the little ring on her bedside table. Their wedding ring. With a smirk, he pockets it, fully planning to tease her about abandoning the gold band. He opens the door to their bedroom and walks out into the hall.

All is silent. All is still.

Hm. That's odd.

"Madge?" Gale asks again, this time his voice a little less sure.

No response. He doesn't hear the sniffling of children or the shuffling of nervous mothers or the clinking of medicine bottles against fingernails and tables. The house is a museum and Gale is instantly uneasy. He tries again.

"Madge?"

For a moment, he thinks she must have fallen back asleep herself after helping the children. On the sofa, or at the table, perhaps. But, no. He checks anywhere he thinks she might be. But to no avail. The house is empty. Hollow. A metallic tang bitters Gale's mouth, and he realizes that he hasn't just missed part of the morning. According to the clock on the wall, they're well into the afternoon now. Where could she be?

Gale doesn't worry. He isn't the worrying sort. But he does notice an unfamiliar quiver in his bones as he looks around the empty house. None of her clothes are missing except for her nightgown and robe. Her drawers are undisturbed. Her _shoes _are even still there, sitting beside his work boots like dainty clues waiting to be discovered. This picture isn't coming into focus for him. She clearly isn't in the house. But there's nothing here to indicate that she's left. He knows that Madge wouldn't go out without shoes, much less in her _nightgown. _

Unless...

Unless there was some emergency? Maybe one of the Farrah children has come down with something more serious than just a case of the sneezes. Yes, that must be it, Gale reassures himself. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to get in a fuss over. Someone must have come to the door and told Madge that there wasn't even the time for Madge to get clothed. Yes. That must be it.

Gale is still uneasy.

And it is in this uneasy state that he slides his jacket over his arms, laces his boots all the way up, tying them tight with a knot that feels permanent, and strides out of the door.

* * *

He doesn't know the Farrahs. He knows _of _them, of course. District Twelve isn't so big that he wouldn't know them. The father is a miner like he is, but older, and their paths don't cross very often. But he knows vaguely where they live. His steps carry him forward.

_Madge. Find Madge. Find Madge. Madge... Madge... Madge..._

When he finds their door, he knocks twice. The walls are thin enough that he can hear peace in the house, which means either there is a child dead or Madge isn't there. Gale hates himself for almost wishing that the former were true.

"Good morning," he says, smile tight and obligatory.

His heart is confusingly, dizzyingly heavy. Mrs. Farrah's eyes are puzzled, even a bit unwelcoming. She keeps her voice low, which Gale assumes can only mean that her husband is in some sort of liquor-induced sleep after a long week taking from the Earth.

"Can I help you?" She asks, cutting the formalities.

Gale bristles.

"Have you," he stumbles, looking down at his boots before returning his eyes up again with dignity and drawing in a deep breath that doesn't comfort him, "Have you seen my wife?"

The woman furrows her brow.

"You're married?" She asks.

If this were any other day and if there weren't an annoying cry of intuition in his blood that tells him something isn't right with Madge's sudden disappearance, he would have been mildly offended that she sounds so shocked at the idea of him having a wife. But this isn't just any other day when he can worry about the people of District Twelve and the future they planned for him, which included marrying Katniss, an idea he now finds oddly unsettling. This isn't just any other day.

"Madge. Madge Hawthorne. She's working with Prim," he prompts.

That causes a lightbulb of recognition on the other woman's face.

"Ah, yes," she begins, drumming her fingers along the doorframe, "Prim was by earlier this morning to check on the kids. Bad case of the sneezes."

Gale feels a twinge of traitorous hope.

"And Madge was with her?" He supplies.

The woman shakes her head.

"Prim was alone."

* * *

This is when Gale begins to get nervous. A sweaty, breath-stealing nervous that ignites his heels with lit coals, pushing him ever faster toward Katniss' house in the Village. He thinks of everything that could be wrong, and reestablishes his facts. This morning, there was a knock on the door. Madge got out of bed, took her ring off, slid her robe on, and left their bedroom, closing the door behind her. Gale fell asleep, then woke up to an empty, undisturbed house. Everything was in its place except for his wife.

The ring on their bedside table makes him think, painfully and miserably, that perhaps she ran away. Perhaps she left him because...Perhaps she wasn't as happy as she let on. But if she were going to leave, why didn't she just tell him? He would have understood. To leave like a thief in the night, though...

No. Madge didn't run. Something in his head reminds his heart how ridiculous the scenario is. If she were going to run away, she'd bring shoes. She'd bring clothes. Madge is sensible, not impulsive. And besides, Gale thinks, she may have been starting to love him, even if she doesn't know what that means anymore.

But there aren't many places Madge could be. And the thought of what is left makes him sick with dread. Looking at the grand house, he takes his walk up to a jog, taking the steps two at a time until his fist makes contact with the door in three solid motions.

"Gale, what are you-" Prim begins, but by now, Gale is too absorbed in the sick, demented day terrors he's drawing up in his mind concerning where Madge could be.

"Where is Madge?"

Prim breathes a laugh, remembering a few weeks ago when Madge was looking for a job and Gale was convinced she'd gone missing. His frantic search had been the talk of the Seam, and Hazelle retold it for Prim with panache.

"You lose her _again?" _Prim asks, chuckling to herself.

But then she looks at Gale and knows this isn't a joke. Her heart cracks at the sight of his broken expression.

"What?"

Gale repeats the details of the morning to her, watching as Prim gets more and more withdrawn. The gravity of the situation strikes the younger girl, and she invites Gale inside. In the living room, the Games are full blast, but Gale can't be caught in two worlds at once. He'll find Madge and watch Katniss later.

"Where do you think she is?" She asks, closing the door behind them, locking them in the foyer together.

Prim hasn't ever seen anyone so miserable, so tormented as Gale is in this moment.

"I don't know," he nearly moans.

He isn't used to being so useless, so at a loss for what to do. Where is Madge? Why isn't she here? Prim desperately claws at the corners of her mind, searching for something to make themselves useful. Finally, she remembers Madge decided to leave her kit in the upstairs office yesterday so she could go straight to Bristel and Thom's after work.

"She left her basket in the office, if you want to check it. There may be something useful. I'll start making some calls."

And before Gale can think, she's pushed him in the direction of the stairs before rushing to the kitchen. She won't be able to call anyone's homes, but businesses will answer, and surely someone will have noticed the former mayor's daughter walking around in her night dress. Gale takes the stairs as quick as he can, opening door after door until he finally finds the one he's after. He pushes the door open and his body takes over.

He tears the room apart.

The basket goes first. Bandages. Scissors. Empty specimen bottles and pills. The glass bottles shatter as they hit the wall and Gale hardly hears the sound. Then, he goes for the desk. There won't be anything useful here and his anger is not helping either, but now his muscles are craving blood since they can't have Madge.

His heavy breathing stops, though, when a vase breaks into a hundred pieces, revealing a roll of papers. It's a jarring revelation, small enough to be considered inane but large enough to stop Gale in his track. Someone tried to hide these notes. Boots crunching against broken glass, he crosses the room and unrolls the slips of paper, revealing thin, curving handwriting.

The first note is about the new Head Peacekeeper. The second is about the Quell. The third is about the arena. The fourth is about Finnick Odair. Someone with the initials PH was feeding information to someone called DU.

Gale opens the final note after discarding the rest to the floor.

_DU-_

_If things start to go South, you know what comes next. When the Game breaks down, the Districts will too. They'll come for you within the hour. _

_Cut the power. Hop the fence. Wait and pray. It's all you can do._

_Remember 13. _

_-PH_

DU...DU...Those are very distinctive initials. Drusus Undersee. Madge Undersee's father. If things start to go South...The Districts will too...They'll come for you...Power...Fence... Pray.

Thirteen.

_Thirteen._

"Prim?"

The pieces of the puzzle fit themselves into the frame of Gale's mind. Someone, a very reliable someone from the earlier messages, was passing on information about The Games to Madge's father. These notes were passed from the Mayor to Katniss via Haymitch. The Mayor wouldn't have let Madge touch something like this with an infinitely long pole.

Remember Thirteen.

Twelve is going to be Thirteen.

Katniss figured out the Arena yesterday. They're planning something big for today's entertainment. Katniss is going to try and get out of the Arena. There isn't much time. Gale's heart throbs in his chest and his world splits in two. Saving Madge and saving Twelve.

He doesn't know if he can do both.

"Prim!" He screams again.

She doesn't respond, but Gale has already thrown himself down the stairs in a run. He grabs her by the shoulders, imploring her with his eyes as he clings to the paper in his hands.

"We need to organize an evacuation."

"What?"

Adrenaline pulses through his body and, for the first time in a long time, Gale feels real, true fear. This is life and death. This is survival like he's never experienced.

"There's no time. Come on," he demands.

Gale has her by the arm and is dragging her from the house, forgetting about Katniss' mother until Prim calls out for her to follow.

"You think they aren't going to notice the mass of people leaving?"

"Katniss figured out the arena, Prim. They aren't going to keep us alive very much longer."

Katniss' mother is a ghost walking among them, so Prim releases Gale and pulls her mother along, forcing her to run at a trot as they begin their journey toward the Seam.

"But aren't they going to catch us?"

"We have to take that chance."

Prim spares a glance up at the man beside her.

"What about Madge?" she asks, voice quiet.

Gale's steps don't falter.

"We'll find her."

Oh, God, he hopes they will.

* * *

Hours later, the Seam is nearly empty and Gale is sick to his stomach. A man he hardly knew just gave up his life to cut the District's power and they only have a few minutes before the Peacekeepers get wise to what is going on. The fence is open and people are bleeding out into the wild when Prim tries to pull Gale along. But he's trying to go the other direction.

He hasn't seen Madge anywhere.

"I have to find Madge," he cries, pulling desperately against her.

But the current of people pulls him out of the fence and Prim whispers poison in his ears.

"Gale, if she's able to be saved, she'll be out here. We'll find her."

But the young man hasn't seen her yet. And he wonders if he ever will again.

* * *

They've been walking all night. Somewhere in the beginning of this journey, Gale became the unofficial leader, and took charge of the front of the caravan. His duty is a game of tug-o-war. His duty to his district, and his duty to his family, his wife. The ropes are tied to either end of his heart and the expectant gaze from his neighbors and coworkers tug on one end while the weight of the ring in his pocket drags him by the other until his heart is ripping new seams for itself.

The moon is bright enough to guide them through the dense fog of trees so long as everyone sticks together and stays quiet. Gale leads at the front, his mother carrying Posy and Rory dragging an exhausted Vick alongside him. Every few moments, Gale looks behind him, scanning the crowd of people. His mother asks why, but he merely replies, 'head count.' But that isn't true because his hands are fiddling with her ring in his pocket and he's searching for that one blonde head that belongs to him in the mass exodus of the dark-haired of District Twelve and he can't find her and everything hurts and his eyes sting but he doesn't even get the reassurance of tears and he has to keep walking. He has never felt anything so painful as this moment.

_"You wanted to see me, Mayor Undersee?" _

The memory hits him with the force of a freight train, ramming him back a few steps and knocking the wind from his chest. Everything is too loud and too close and he wishes she were here to comfort him. He isn't sure why this memory strikes him of all memories he has with her, but there isn't any stopping the flood now. The march of District Twelve continues on.

_"Yes, my boy. Come in," Drusus Undersee says, rising from his desk to shake Gale's hand._

Behind him, the mob steps in time, giving Gale the unrealistic feeling that they're coming after him. Their steps are a chorus of cracking leaves and crumbling pine needles and they deafen him to anything but the voices in his head.

_Gale sits in the chair across from the Mayor, listening as he assures Gale that what they're about to discuss is strictly confidential. Madge should be at the Everdeens for the next half hour, at least, preparing Prim for Katniss' arrival from The Games later this morning. The knowledge that Katniss is coming home, that Katniss is really coming home, still sends a thrill up and down Gale's spine, even in a terrifying place like the Mayor's office. _

_"You know why you're here. Madge told me you were smart. Don't prove her wrong."_

Posy is snoring on her mother's shoulder, fitfully sleeping. Gale only wishes he was sleeping. Any nightmare conjured up by his subconscious would be better than what he's recalling now.

_Gale responds the only way he knows how, completely unsure of what the Mayor is talking about. He has no idea why he's been called here. _

_"Madge is an excellent judge of character, sir," he says diplomatically._

Gale's throat closes and his grip tightens unbearably strong against the ring in his hand. The metal bends a little under his hand, proving that it wasn't gold after all. Just a cheap and breakable alloy. He checks behind him again, hoping for a glint of golden hair in the moonlight. But he doesn't see one. His breathing stutters.

_"Then tell me how she has been so extraordinarily wrong about you?" The Mayor snaps._

_Gale blinks._

_"Excuse me?"_

That means there could only be two options. Either Madge is here, or she's...

_"You think the Capitol hasn't noticed? You think they haven't noticed that my daughter has been out with the Girl on Fire's cousin?"_

_"I don't understand."_

Or she's gone. She isn't here. He failed her. He _failed _her.

_"We're in a war. If you loved her, you wouldn't do this to her."_

_The words are out of Gale's mouth before he can think about them and how extraordinarily wrong they are. The words are out of his mouth before he hears the creek of a floorboard outside of the office he now sits in. But he's so caught up in Katniss and the life he thought he was supposed to have that he speaks in vicious spikes and cracking whips. The words are, all at once, the biggest lie and mistake that he's ever made in his life. _

_"I don't love your daughter, sir."_

Above the wandering party of District Twelve refugees comes the insistent, deafening noise of Hovercrafts. As if on cue, everyone ducks. Mothers protect their children, husbands cling to their wives. And Gale has no one. The searchlights of the hovercrafts, however, are not searching for the survivors. No, their target is much more permanent, definite. The air machines make their way steadfastly toward the District. And then, in the silence of those on this death march away from the only home they've ever known, an explosion. The first bomb hits its target. And the edges of the forest, miles and miles away from Gale and his mob, light up with the flames. His mouth opens to scream something, but what would he say? No? Stop? Don't? Madge? None of those prayers would go answered.

_"That explains why you've been so selfish."_

Bombs are going off. Everywhere. And Gale's life goes up in smoke with them.

_When Gale gets out of the meeting with her father, Madge is waiting outside. He doesn't know it, but she heard him. **I don't love your daughter**. It rings in her ears like fireblasts and sits in her throat like hot garbage. Her eyes are brimming with tears and she speaks in a riddle that Gale can only assume refers to their conversation the day before about everything being different now. _

_"This is it, isn't it?" She asks with graveyard finality._

Gale didn't know what she meant then. But now?

Now he understands.

It's all over.

* * *

It is days later when the hovercrafts from Thirteen arrive. It takes much posturing and convincing, but when the Rebels manage to prove that they have Katniss by showing a video monitor of her progress in their underground hospital, people begin stampeding for the Hovercrafts in droves. Thirteen is meticulous, refusing to allow anyone on the ship until all of their pertinents are filed and stored on the communicuffs of the officials. Gale has been waiting at the back, hovering there as he desperately looks for his wife. Days. Tired, exhausted days in the forest, and still no sign of Madge.

He hasn't seen any blondes but Prim and her mother.

He knows she is gone, but the irrational pieces of him are the only ones whole enough to move his body and form words.

"Sir, I'm going to need you to board the hovercraft," A rebel says, walking up to Gale with an air of confident authority, as if he could ever command Gale Hawthorne to do anything.

Gale watches as the man pulls up a new file on his communicuff and begins tapping. Everything here is done by the books. District Thirteen is meticulous. Nothing gets by them.

"What's your name?"

The rebel looks up at Gale and takes a nervous step back. This man has been on rescue missions earlier in his career, but never has he seen a man with such dead eyes before. Like a man with little left to live for.

"Gale Hawthorne," the young man gives, reluctantly as his heart painfully pulses at the sound of his own last name. Madge's last name.

As the soldier is typing, asking Gale how to spell Hawthorne, Gale looks at the fancy wristwatch bearing a computer screen. Everyone should be imputed into that system. If Madge...If Madge made it, she would be in there.

"Do you have everyone's name on that thing?" He asks, curiously.

Whatever it is that the rebel expects, it certainly isn't this. He reels at the question, furrowing his brow suspiciously as a few signs of light twinkle in the other man's dark eyes.

"Excuse me?"

A minute ago, Gale wasn't hot under the collar or struggling to hold back his temper, but the knowledge of his wife is so close, so tangible. She could be _so close. _She could be _alive _and he just missed her as she was corralled into another hovercraft while he was helping his mother and Posy onto their. She could be _alive _and was too busy helping some poor, infirmed old man on the journey to look for Gale. Madge could still be... Madge could still be alive.

"Do you have everyone's name in there?" Gale repeats, stringing the words out harshly.

"Yes," The man begins, dragging out that word, "but I'm not at liberty-"

Gale doesn't seem to hear him. His eyes go sharp and desperate, taking a threatening step closer to the uniformed rebel.

"I'm looking for Madge Hawthorne."

It's a command. His breath comes in spurts and his gaze becomes fuzzy. Where is Madge? Where is his wife? He's desperate. Desperate. And his heart is shattering into a million pieces like the fragments of the District he called home only a few days ago. All Gale can see is Madge. He is so close to knowing. So close to finding her.

"I'm not allowed-"

If a man can unleash the fury of God, Gale does so now.

"My name is Gale Hawthorne. Katniss Everdeen, your _mockingjay_, is my cousin. And I'm not getting in that goddamn machine of yours until you tell me if Madge Hawthorne is on it."

The rebel sighs and begins furiously typing.

"How are we spelling Hawthorne?"

Gale growls.

"H-A-W-T-H-O-R-N-E. Exactly how I spelled it five minutes ago."

The man types on his communicuff, and then waits for the information to come his way. Something in his expression shifts, and he refuses to look up at the imposing man in front of him. The man's skin goes gray, and Gale is sure he can hear his heart shatter in the silence. He doesn't answer Gale's question, but the question he asks in response is all the answer Gale needs.

"Who is she?"

_"This is it, isn't it?"_

It's all over. And Gale wonders if this pain is what it feels like to die.

"She was my wife."

* * *

**Please review! Thank you for reading!**


	11. Chapter 11

District Thirteen is a bureaucratic nightmare.

_"Well, you can file another inquest, Mr. Hawthorne, but as we've said before, we have no record of anyone by the names Madge Undersee or Madge Hawthorne."_

He hates this place and their stone-faced soldiers. After two months of asking, their answer finally started to change.

_"Our official records reflect that she is dead, sir. That is the end of these formal inquests concerning Madge Hawthorne."_

He hates these soldiers so much, that he becomes one of them. And he's good at it. Because he hates himself more than he could ever hate the other Mockingjay soldiers. He trains all day and plans and strategizes all night. Gale shoves Madge's ring in the bottom of his desk and instantly buries it with papers and files until he can almost muffle its tell-tale heart like sound that fills the room anytime he's in it. His work ethic gets him high up the ranks quickly, and was even offered a promotion to militarized weapons expert-a bombs manufacturer- a job he isn't sure he'll take. Some eyebrows raise at his peculiar behavior, but some simply chalk it up to the passion that comes from being a relative of Katniss. He knows the truth. He works like he does because he has nothing to live for. He does it because if he's given too much time to himself, he starts to think. And thinking ends up leading him to dark corners of his mind and heart, where he has tucked away Madge Undersee for good.

And people notice. They notice that Gale Hawthorne is walking around like a body propped up by a uniform. There isn't any substance to him anymore. No fire. No passion. Just duty. Just work. Just sacrifice. But no one feels the change as deeply as Hazelle Hawthorne. He does everything he knows he is supposed to. He kisses her on the top of her head and squeezes her hand when the occasion calls for something like that. He answers her questions, but responds with silence anytime she gets too close.

But one day, Hazelle cannot take it anymore. She opens the door to his tiny District Thirteen apartment without knocking and slams it behind her. Hands locking on her hips, she raises an eyebrow at him. Her gaze is level; her heart is pounding with maternal fire.

"What do you think you're doing?" She asks.

From the moment the door opens, Gale is instantly in combat mode. He's tracking entrance and exit strategies, cataloguing everything in this room that could be used as a weapon. His training has served him well, but when he sees that it is his mother making an unexpected visit, his body visibly slackens, though his jaw remains tight at her question.

"What do you mean?"

Hazelle sits on the edge of his bed, looking at him as gently as she can manage. The truth, as it has been presented in the official reports and as it has been concluded by the investigators of Thirteen, is that Madge was called away to Town and was killed in the first wave of bodies. There isn't any physical evidence to support this, but, after the bombings, there isn't much physical evidence that Twelve ever existed, either. The place Hazelle lived her whole life is nothing more than a memory.

"You did everything you could have. There was no saving her," Hazelle tells him.

It's what everyone has told him. His therapist. Thom. Katniss, even. But he knows better. If he hadn't fallen asleep. If he hadn't let her answer the door. If he had gone after her earlier. If he hadn't wasted his time at the Farrah house. There are a million things he could have done differently and every single one of those scenarios that he draws up in his head end with Madge escaping the bombings at his side.

"I could have saved her," he protests, his voice a rumble of thunder.

Hazelle knows that what she says will hurt. But no one else is saying it, and if his own mother can't do it, then she can never expect him to move forward. Not move on. She would never want that. Just move forward.

"Well, you didn't," she snaps, causing Gale's agonized eyes to turn on her, "And that's what life will be like for you now, Gale. You couldn't save her, and you didn't. So now, it's time to wake up and live your life again. It's what we do."

That's when Gale breaks. He doesn't cry or openly weep or lose himself to agony. But Hazelle sees the mountain that is his heart crumble like it is nothing greater than a pile of ash. His proud, solid body collapses, his shoulders hunching and his elbows resting on his knees to lay his head in his hands. He hasn't let himself feel like this since he got on the Hovercraft to move to this place. And now, he feels why he did that. Because if he had to walk around every day feeling like _this_, he knows he wouldn't live. His wife is dead. His _wife _is _dead. _How do you survive that?

"I miss her," he whispers, "And I can't stop."

Hazelle reaches out for his hand, extracting it from its cradle hold on his head and putting it in both of her own. Her eyes fill with tears.

"It's alright."

He looks up at her, eyes bleary, soul lost.

"Is it supposed to feel like this? Do you…?"

She knows what he means. Does she still feel about her husband what she felt before she lost him? There is no simple answer to that question. Hazelle puts a loving hand on her son's back and pats him comfortingly.

"Do you want the truth, Gale?"

He doesn't. Not at all. And Hazelle knows he isn't ready for it.

"Yes."

His mother speaks, and Gale's chest constricts painfully. Her eyes are open and honest, hiding nothing.

"You will forget her."

_Madge Undersee. His wife._

"You will forget the way her breath smelled in the morning."

_"Madge, you need to chew some peppermint," Gale said, smirking as he looks at his wife, laying in bed next to him. _

_"You aren't very nice," she teases in response, with wide, glittering eyes. _

_"And your breath smells like the slag heap on a summer afternoon," he quips._

_She's smug, but covers her mouth subconsciously all the same as she stands to retrieve the mints hidden in a drawer in the kitchen. _

_"You would know, wouldn't you?"_

"You will forget the way her laugh sounded."

_Madge braces herself, bending over at the hips as she laughs at Posy and Vick's antics. They are pretending to be Gale and Madge, Posy having dressed herself in a shawl of her mother's old window curtains and Vick slapping a brooding look on his face. Gale didn't think it was so amusing, particularly since he and Madge hadn't been friends long at this point and since the Games had only begun a few days ago. But Madge's laugh loosens his shoulders a little bit. It's like the sound of a dinner bell, warm and inviting, the call to return home after a long day's work._

"You won't remember the exact words she used to say good morning or good night."

_"You'll keep safe, won't you?" she whispers, eyes still closed, as she listens to his boots cross their bedroom threshold._

_And, at night, when her eyes are too heavy to keep open, her farewell is always the same._

_"I'll see you when the morning comes."_

"You will wake up one day and find that you can't longer remember what her hand felt like in yours."

_"Do you, Madge Undersee, take Gale Hawthorne…."_

_Gale tunes the justice out, instead turning over the feeling of Madge's skin against his own. She's a dainty kind of steel, his Madge. Someone so fragile looking on the outside, but diamond tough in the inside. Her pulse is warm and her grip tight. It feels like hope._

"You will forget."

_Waking up in the morning with her small body tucked into his. Dancing with her in the street. Watching her sit with Posy as the little girl tries to explain the finer points of some street game that all the Seam kids play. Her smile. The sound of her humming as she washed the dishes. Her strength. The way the soft curves of her fit in with the rough edges of him like the perfect combination of puzzle pieces. _

"But you won't ever lose her," Hazelle reassures her, "I haven't ever lost your father. He was in the wind through the washing lines and the way the sunlight played through the trees."

He sees Madge in the strawberries that they serve in the District Thirteen dining hall.

"Your old game bag and snares."

In the songs Posy sings absent-mindedly when Gale walks her from the school room back to their mother's apartment.

"The way the floorboards creaked because he never got around to fixing them," she continues with a distant laugh.

Gale sees her in the photographs in Rory's textbooks of what a real, true, blue sky looks like. Hazelle's eyes are soft. She knows. She's felt for his father the same way he feels for Madge.

"People stick, Gale. It takes more than death for them to disappear completely," she says, as reassuring as she can.

She squeezes his hand.

"You promise?" He asks.

He's afraid. Afraid of losing Madge a second time. He looks at his mother with the gaze of a child, a child begging for comfort, for protection from the things that make his heart race in terror.

"I promise."

_Twig promise_, Gale thinks to himself bitterly.

She gives him a kiss on the forehead and holds him to her chest for a moment.

"I'll be by later tonight with something for your dinner, alright?"

He nods and watches her walk out of the door.

"Yes, m'am."

Gale knows she is right. It's time to move forward. And that's why he begins designing bombs that very evening. Taking people away, just like Madge was taken from him. This is his life now.

* * *

**Please review. I'd love to hear your feedback. **


	12. Chapter 12

Katniss Everdeen has a secret. A dirty, malevolent secret born out of vengeances and pain. Gale killed her sister. And, so... Katniss may have done something that she could have one day decided to regret.

It was all too easy, really. When The Capitol fell, a legion of soldiers swept the city for prisoners missed in the original incursion made by Gale and the other Mockingjay soldiers. A week later, Katniss was still in the hospital, a hallucinating mess after losing Prim.

That's when the soldiers brought her in.

Madge Undersee.

No, Katniss had to remind herself as she watched the young blonde's body get tossed like a ragdoll on a cot a few paces away, Madge Hawthorne. That shivering, convulsing mess of a human being is Madge Hawthorne. It's a miracle that Katniss recognized her at all. The near-lifeless girl looks like she's been thrown in a pit of spikes and mud and left their to die. Maybe she was; Katniss wouldn't ever know.

"Nurse," the Mockingjay croaks.

The noise strikes the walls, but the neither the blonde nor the soldiers surrounding her cot give any indication that they're paying attention.

"Nurse," Katniss commands.

This time, a uniformed woman strolls up, intimidation marking her face as she looks at the hero of the revolution. Nurse Ivory, she's called. Her interested eyes are tense as she asks Katniss what she needs.

"What's happening over there?"

Nurse Ivory knows she shouldn't tell the younger woman the truth. The entire thing was meant to be kept hush-hush. But...Katniss lost her sister and has not stopped suffering since. The nurse has watched as people keep secrets from the woman to whom they all owe their allegiance, and she thinks she's helping when she sits on the edge of Katniss' bed and says,

"They found her in the Capitol. Wasn't kept in the prison with the rest of them, but the basement of a private residence near the President's House."

Madge is alive. _Alive. _Katniss is trying to process through that information, constantly interrupted by flashing images of bomb's and Gale's tortured face.

"How did she escape? From Twelve?" Katniss asks.

Lowering her voice, Nurse Ivory makes herself busy so as not to attract attention. There is something about her voice that says she doesn't quite believe the theory that has been pieced together by her superiors, but she knows she can't question it.

"No one knows. They think she made a sweet deal with The Capitol. Information that could be used against the Rebellion in exchange for her safety. A deal that went South after they got her out."

Katniss feels the sudden need to defend her friend. Even after all that has transpired, she knows that there isn't anything Madge could have sold to the Capitol. Everything she passed along from the Mayor came in code. Madge wouldn't have understood a word of it, even if she managed to figure out that what her father told her to tell Haymitch was code at all.

"Madge didn't know anything about the Rebellion."

The very same girl they are talking about, the girl who rose from the dead, struggles against the arms of her captors who are struggling to brace her body to the bed with rough leather straps.

"Weren't her parents killed for turning against The Capitol?" Nurse Ivory asks.

Neither of them look over toward the other patient.

"Yes."

The woman is attempting to piece together the picture and explain why it is that they assume Madge has the information.

"And wasn't she married to-to-"

That's when she remembers just who it was who put Katniss in the hospital in the first place. Suddenly embarrassed, Ivory blushes and stammers. It takes Katniss a while before she steels herself and finishes the sentence.

"Gale Hawthorne."

There's something about Katniss' voice that signals the end of the conversation.

"Yes, well, she must have known more than she let on."

She begins to walk away, ashamed for having brought up the man who may have killed Katniss' beloved sister, when a hint of panic strikes Katniss as she watches the buckles of Madge's restraints tighten and tighten until they pucker her damaged, dirty skin.

"What are they going to do with her?" Katniss asks.

Ivory doesn't turn back around toward the Mockingjay. She just shrugs and makes a show of pouring more water in the basin atop the bedside table, trying to look as busy as possible.

"Take her in for questioning."

Questioning. Katniss knows what that means. They're going to see how much she told The Capitol.

"Look what they did to her. She couldn't have told them much."

Madge looks worse than Peeta did when he returned, and that's a fact. Katniss has seen more prisoners of war than she can count, but... None like Madge.

"But The Capitol protected her all the same. That makes her our enemy."

They think because she was saved from District Twelve, she's somehow a traitor. It does all seem a little... convenient. Her being taken the day that the bombing happened. But Katniss doesn't believe that Madge helped The Capitol. She hated them too much. And, as much as it sours her stomach, Katniss knows she must ask the inevitable question.

"Has anyone told Gale?"

Gale. The man who may have murdered Prim and who married Madge to save her from a fate worse than death, a fate he wasn't actually ever able to save her from at all.

"She's an enemy of the state, a conspirator of the Capitol. She doesn't get spousal rights."

Katniss ceases fiddling with the edges of her blanket. Her muscles tense as if preparing to be struck.

"I don't understand."

"We're keeping her dead. As far as anyone knows, we never found her."

Katniss watches in silence as the curtains are drawn around Madge's bed moments later. In the hours that follow, Katniss hears many screams. Feminine, agonized screams. But she simply pulls her pillow over her ears and blocks the noise, humming a song she remembers from the Seam as tears trickle down her face, one right after the other.

* * *

Katniss sees Gale many times after her release from the Hospital. But not once does she mention Madge. Not once.

* * *

There is something interesting about the human heart that Gale has realized over the last few months. It's about the human heart. In his time as a soldier, he's seen plenty of dead bodies. Men, women...children, even... with their insides turned out. So, he's seen more human hearts than any human being would ever have to see. And it's occured to him that the human heart has been wildly misrepresented. When Posy doodles a heart on the homework he checks over for her every afternoon, they look like two little commas, pushed together roughly and haphazardly. It's cute and sweet and Gale now knows after seeing so many human hearts crushed beneath the weight of war and stone and his explosives that the human heart is ugly. It's a slab of meat. Good only when it knows its place and is kept there. And that knowledge puts Gale's pain in perspective. After Prim, after Madge, he only has to remind himself that his heart is little more than a butcher's cut and he can turn himself into stone once more. The heart doesn't mean anything. His pain doesn't mean anything.

And life is like that for a while after the war. Katniss retreats further and further from the truth and Gale lives three stories above where is wife is being held, completely and totally oblivious. But then, the one year anniversary of the rescue of Peeta, Annie, and Joanna rolls around, and with it, a celebration of power. Gale hates this day. It was the first successful incursion into the Capitol and, while the history books will remember it as a great day of Victory for the rebellion, Gale will always consider it to be one of his many failures.

They are all crammed into a vast multi-purpose room in District Thirteen. There is bunting and excess the likes of which this District is unused to. Everything, in general, is done by the book. Everyone gets rationed and accounted for to the slightest fraction of a degree. But today, the celebration is almost Capitolian in manner. It makes Gale's stomach turn when he sees his uniformed reflection in the medals he will be presented with. They are made of gold and bronze and have been embossed with emblems of the new government, but all Gale sees is the people he's killed. So many people. When he stands on the stage, he doesn't smile or even manage to look grateful. He is stone.

He carries Madge's ring in his right pocket. It is the only thing that can keep him balanced with a heart so heavy.

Then as Gale walks back to his seat in the front row facing the stage, Commander Paylor stands, that authoritative air of hers calming the easily excitable crowd. They watch her, enraptured, as one would watch a shooting star or a lunar eclipse. She led an uprising, Gale reminds himself. She knows that this isn't all bunting and cake. And her speech merely confirms that fact.

"My fellow citizens of the Republic of Panem," she begins, taking her time as she pulls her shoulders back, looking as regal as anyone has ever looked, "War is not easy. I don't have to tell you that. You are all here because you are survivors. Because you all have gone through a bloody and terrible conflict."

Gale feels the room shift around him as the Commander looks... Conflicted.

"Today, we celebrate the safe retrieval of some of Panem's most celebrated citizens. Annie Cresta. Peeta Mellark. Johanna Mason."

In succession, their faces flash up on the screens on the walls behind her.

"They were tortured by a corrupt government. We all know that."

"But...Our hands are not clean either. When the Capitol fell, we took some prisoners as well. Prisoners we treated no better than the Capitol treated us. Perhaps even worse, because we know better. We know better than to intentionally break someone."

Music strikes up behind the commander and the audience holds their breath. Something about this scares them. They're all waiting heavily for what comes next in this speech. They know it cannot be good. Gale rolls his eyes at the ridiculous display of contrition. No amount of apologies and no amount of aching regret can save people. He knows that.

And then...

Then, they bring out the prisoners.

_No. It...She isn't... They never found her..._

Madge. Madge is paraded out with two gentlemen. All three of them are shackled together, but Madge is the bloody centerpiece. Her temple is bleeding and her skin is caked in mud and poorly scabbed over cuts. She's bruised nearly everywhere and Gale can't breathe. He wonders if everyone is seeing the same thing that he is. He can't control his heart rate and his pulse is racing and he wants to know why_. _Why did they take her away and why did they let him believe she was dead and why would they ever suspect her of treason and why did everyone let him live his life like this when the one person he couldn't fall asleep without dreaming about was in the _same district _as he is. Her name passes over his lips in a prayed whisper. With great ceremony, Paylor picks up a key and crosses to them. _  
_

"So, today, as a sign of progress, as a symbol of healing, I will remove the shackles from these prisoners."

She does so and Madge nearly collapses. The crowd collectively draws in a tight breath followed by harsh silence. The Commander extends a hand to Madge's shaking form, a hand that Madge takes. She allows Paylor to pull her to her feet.

Gale is aware of hardly anything except that Madge is alive. Madge is alive and she is here.

"You are free. Welcome to the Republic of Panem."

Paylor then releases her and points toward the stairs leading to the center aisle of the audience's seats. The two other prisoners, two men Gale does not know, walk wearily behind her. A wave of sympathy rolls over the crowd as Madge falters on her feet, but manages to bring herself back up to stand on her own each and every time. When she makes her way down the steps, it is then that she sees him.

Gale Hawthorne. Her husband. She takes a few steps closer, as if to make sure what she's seeing isn't some kind of apparition or specter. He isn't. He's the real man.

Gale thought, no, he was _certain _that Madge would reach out and take his hand. There was just something about her that told him she wanted his contact, an assurance that he is real. But, instead, she stands before him, stares at his familiar features for a while, and then walks on as if she saw nothing at all.

* * *

Gale spends the rest of the afternoon on autopilot, bullying and coercing a younger soldier who saw no action in the war until he gave up Madge's file. It was marked confidential, for eyes only. No one was supposed to know she was alive. No one. It details why they took her as a prisoner and the kinds of torture Madge endured under both regimes. Gale would be lying if he said a few of the methods didn't make him empty his stomach a few times. Then, he finds her apartment. Knocks. Waits. And when she finally answers, he just stands there, unable to make himself do much of anything else. Madge is the first to speak.

"Well," she begins.

Speaking like this seems foreign. It's something she's become unused to in her time since the end of District Twelve. The only sort of verbal communication she's had has been to scream and sob things like, "No, please. Don't," or "I don't know anything, I swear."

"How are you?" She continues.

She's unable to think of anything else to say and so Gale responds with the only thing he can think to say.

"Why you?"

Madge furrows her brow.

"Why me?"

Gale's voice is suspicious, but it is the only thing he can bring himself to be right now. If he allows himself to feel relief, he will inevitably drag her into his arms and never let her go. So, he thinks of the gaping holes in the logic of her file and goes from there.

"Did you know something about the rebellion?"

Madge doesn't want to think about this. Madge doesn't want to talk about this. Bile rises in her throat as she commands words to her tongue while still trying to look out desperately over the valley of her memories without attaching them to herself. She doesn't want to feel like these things happened to her. She digs her fingertips into her flesh, crossing her arms over her chest. Trying to keep herself from falling apart and trying to keep herself from opening her arms to him.

"Thread told them I did."

Relief. Gale feels its sweet taste on his tongue, but he asks the question anyway.

"But you didn't?"

She shakes her head and the vertebrae in her neck pop at the movement. Her bones are unused to movement like this, movements so normal as walking and standing and nodding and shaking the head. She almost dreads the moment she decides to smile again. Because her face will feel genuine pain then. She hasn't smiled since the morning she was taken from her home. Her's and Gale's home.

"My dad was very careful. Everything I knew was in code. I couldn't…There wasn't anything for me to know."

She's told them that. She has told them about the codes and about the messages but no one wanted to listen. Something trembles in the back of Gale's mind as he thinks of the instructions for evacuating when the bombs were coming for 12.

"But you knew you were going to be taken?" He asks.

Madge has to think about that for a while before answering judiciously. She's the traitorous Mayor's daughter. Of course she knew she could be taken.

"There was always that possibility."

"Then why…"

Defeat chisels at Madge and finally, her voice clips at Gale's ego, his arrogance, for coming here and demanding answers on the day she is released from captivity.

"Gale, your precious rebellion has kept me locked in a cage for weeks to determine if I've sold anything out to the damn Capitol. I don't need you to give me the same lecture."

She's tired. So tired of this conversation. The cracks within her begin to bleed.

"But you knew you were going to be taken?" Gale asks again.

"There was always that possibility," she reiterates.

They're still standing in the doorway. Madge has not invited him in and Gale has not pushed his way through. They just face off like that, across the threshold of her door, just like they did when he used to sell her strawberries.

"So, that's why you went with them? Because you always knew you would have to?"

_Because it was your duty,_ Gale seems to be asking. But that isn't the reason Madge went with Thread that day and that isn't the reason why she didn't cry out for Gale in the prison hidden away in the depths of District Thirteen.

"No. That's not it."

"You must have been pretty loyal."

No. Not loyal. In love. She was too in love with him to let Thread have him and too in love to let the Rebellion use her as leverage against Gale. She couldn't do it. She went with Thread silently, calmly, because she loves Gale Hawthorne with everything that is in her and she doesn't think she will ever learn how to fix it.

"Yeah. That's what it will say on my tombstone. Madge Undersee. Loyal to the end," she scoffs.

Gale watches her breathing hitch as hot, shameful tears rise up in her. Reaching his arms out for her, he almost has her in an embrace when she frantically steps backward, rushing to brush the tears from her eyes.

"I don't want you to do this. Not again," She protests.

It is Gale's turn to be confused.

"What?"

Madge's water gaze softens and turns tentative.

"The Capitol is gone. You don't have to… You don't owe me anymore. I'm not your problem anymore, okay?"

She runs a hand through her head, revealing several scars along her hairline that make Gale's blood itch.

"What the Hell are you talking about?"

Madge's voice raises in something other than fear for the first time in weeks. Now, she's begging him with an expression of the martyred about her.

"You think I'm so stupid that I didn't see straight through you from the first? You waltz in and conveniently want to marry me right after you found out about me giving you morphling? You think I bought all of that shit about 'I promise I'll love you'? I'm not blind, Gale. You thought you owed me for saving your life. And you've paid your debt, now. So, it's over. There's no one here you owe anything to. Get married for real. Start a family. Go and love someone with that big heart of yours because after everything I can't keep you here. It's too selfish. You don't have to pretend anymore. You're free."

Gale furrows his eyebrows.

"You think that leaving you would make me feel free?"

Madge looks up at him, defenseless now.

"Won't it?"

Her husband can't answer. He doesn't have words to express how painful a simple, two-word question can be.

"Gale, I love you. And I can't let you waste yourself-" She protests.

But Gale does something Madge does not expect. He gently, very gently, wraps his arms around her, closing his eyes as he feels her against him once more. She's alive. The woman he loves is _alive _and they can be happy if they would only let themselves be.

"I could never waste myself on you. I love you," he whispers.

It takes a while, but sooner or later, he feels Madge relax against him. And shortly after, he feels the warming sensation of two small, scarred arms return his embrace before Madge tucks her face into his neck. And, for the first time in his life, Gale cries tears of gratitude.

_The End._


End file.
